Gapeworm Symptoms in Chickens (and How to Treat)

Getting your bird medicated water is fine, but making them drink it is another problem.

To cure, kindly use a recommended Flubenvet 1% 60g which is licensed for treating gapeworm. For heavy infestations ( ‘eggs per gram of faeces’ or “high epg” determined by laboratory worm count), usually on high stocking density or heavily used ground, it is usually necessary to worm again a little before the prepatent period (the time it takes from being laid as a worm egg to being a mature worm of egg-laying age) to reduce high infection levels. Rotating the pasture helps to break this cycle.

You can also use a dilution of Aviverm for large birds (between the range of $17-$18 for a 50ml bottle; this is due to change later) diluted in your bird’s drinking water. Weigh your bird using a scale, then work out a dose and add it to drinking water.

In chicken farming or backyard chickens keeping, its important you use Flubenol or Aviverm as they contain the levamisole (a chemical), which, when consumed, will kill adult worms. Ivermectin-based products will not kill adult gapeworms.

Note: Treat all of your birds, not just a particular one showing symptoms. If your chicken is not drinking water with the Aviverm or Flubenvet in it, you can mix some of the dirty water with wet kitten food, which they will eat. Aviverm can be used in a second dose 24 hours later in a serious case.

A few weeks after, your birds looking weak, zombielike and gapped a lot will begin doing better, will be back to their former happy state (free from gasping) and will be happy to gobble down their feed in a matter of minutes.

History of these Worms in Windpipe

Young birds up to 8 weeks of age have a higher chance of contacting gapeworms.

Gapeworms normally live in the windpipe (trachea) but are also found in the lung and bronchi.

The eggs picked up directly or indirectly hatch into a larva that then penetrates the intestine walls and moves to the bronchi and lungs.

Once there, they go through a Laval moult before travelling up to the trachea. Females and males gapeworms attach once they arrive there.

This process takes about seven days to complete. Fully grown, they are “ Y-Shaped and differ in size between 1 and 2cm. Their blood colour is “red”, or what I love to call “blood-red.”

Gapeworms lay eggs that get swallowed and passed out in the faeces or coughed up on the ground.

“It’s a parasite that lives in the flesh of the bird’s throat and causes consistent gasping and wheezing.”

Many people who want a natural treatment for gapeworm in chickens often make the mistake of giving the birds antibiotic (because they mistake it for a respiratory infection). This will not help if the bird is truly infected with gapeworm, and the condition will only worsen.

Remember, M and F gapeworm spend their entire lives joined to one another, embedded in your bird throat. They feed off your bird, creating eggs that pass through the bird or are coughed out so the next generation can be eaten by snails, earthworms, slugs, and flies.

Gapeworms become most deadly when they completely block the throat of an affected bird, stopping water, feed, and eventually air from passing through and eventually leading to death. Every type of poultry can be affected, including game birds and waterfowl, especially pheasants.