These worms live in the digestive track of the pigeon and lay eggs, which will come out with the bird's droppings. If there eggs get into pigeon throw water or food into the a pigeons, hatch inside them and grow into the new worm. In the loft, there is no way for the fancier to tell whether birds in the loft have these parasites as the adult worms are only rarely passed in the droppings and indeed hairworms are microscopic. They are usually diagnosed by microscopic examination of a dropping sample, in which their eggs can be seen.
How to Treat Roundworm and Hair Worm ?
Recommended Moxidectin to treat hairworm and roundworm. Moxidectin (2 mg/ml) is a clear fully water-soluble liquid that, when diluted in the drinking water, is readily taken by the birds. The dose is 5 ml per 1 litre of water for 24 hours. It has a wide safety margin and is perfectly safe to use during racing, breeding and, in particular, moulting.
Moxidectin
Moxidectin does not cause nausea and vomiting as many older worming preparations do and so the birds can be fed and loft flown quite normally. Moxidectin also has the added advantage that it eliminates any external parasites that feed off body fluid.
Mites in pigeons live off blood and so these are all cleared with Moxidectin. Lice live off feather debris and bloom and so in theory this drug should have no effect on them but in practice, during the 3 weeks following Moxidectin treatment, most lice also disappear. Moxidectin is also a safe and effective treatment for airsac mites at the usual dose given above.
How to Control in the stock loft ?
The stock loft should be completely free of worms. The roundworm life cycle can be completed in 3 - 4 weeks and so a single worming before breeding (or racing) will improve things for that period of time only. Eradication can be achieved by using Moxidectin twice at a 3-week interval followed by a superthorough clean after each treatment. This removes droppings passed before medication, which may contain infective parasite eggs with the potential to reinfect the birds. It is a good idea to have the droppings rechecked 3 weeks after the second worming to ensure that the parasite has been cleared. Once these parasites have been cleared, worming any new bird before it goes into the stock loft should prevent reintroduction of worms. The dose of Moxidectin for a single bird is 0.25 ml of the neat liquid. If it is not possible to completely and thoroughly clean the loft, Moxidectin can be repeated every 3 weeks over a 6-month period as the longest that eggs can remain infective in the environment is 5 - 6 months. Worms can also reenter the stock loft if the droppings of pigeons or doves outside the loft can enter. To prevent this, any external flight should either have a grid or suspended floor.
It is important that the race team is free of worms before racing. The need to treat can be determined by a dropping analysis. In the absence of testing, it is better to assume that the birds are infected and treat twice at a 3-week interval followed by a thorough clean before the commencement of racing. With the commencement of Thursday night basketing, race unit reinfection can occur and so it is important that the droppings are regularly checked during racing to monitor this. If a positive result is returned, worming is usually done on the Sunday or Monday (when racing is on the Saturday). In the absence of testing, it is a good idea to give the birds 1 day Moxidectin every fourth week (usually on a Monday) to clear any roundworms or hairworms that might have been picked up in addition to any lice or mites that they might be carrying.
Tapeworm
Tapeworms also live in the pigeon's digestive tract. They have a head or scolex, which is embedded deeply into the lining of the pigeon's bowel. Behind this head mature segments, called proglottids, which are essentially packets of eggs. New segments are continuously forming behind the head, pushing maturing segments further and further away until eventually ribbons of segments trail behind the head down the bowel, with the most mature ones at the end. When fully mature, these egg packets snap free either singly or several at a time in ribbons before passing down the bowel and out with the droppings. The fancier will notice either a segmented white ribbon hanging from the pigeon's cloaca or, alternatively, as the segments are motile when passed, he may see small white segments wriggling within the droppings shortly after being passed or air-dried segments stuck to the surrounding perch. Tapeworms are therefore not a microscopic diagnosis because these segments can be seen with the naked eye. Different types of tapeworm vary in size. The small ones look like white pieces of cotton trailing through the dropping, larger ones look like pieces of rice stuck on the surface of the droppings, while the largest ones appear as whitish squares up to 0.5 cm x 0.5 cm. Once in the environment, the eggs inside these segments are ingested by insects. These eggs hatch into infective larvae in the insects. Pigeons become infected by eating these insects.
Treatment
For tapeworm eradication, I recommend Prazivet Solution for the pigeon racing sport. This is a new preparation that has many advantages over previously available treatments. It is fully water-soluble, meaning that birds do not have to be picked up individually and given tablets. It only needs to be made available for 24 hours, unlike other water-soluble preparations. It can also safely be given during racing, breeding, and, in particular, moulting. There is no need to remove food and the birds behave quite normally so that feeding and loft training can continue uninterrupted. It is also very cheap, costing less than 4 cents to treat each bird. The dose is 5 ml to 1 litre of water. It's active constituent is praziquantel. Praziquantel tablets (Droncit) are also available for those fliers preferring to give tablets to individual birds.
A tapeworm's life cycle can be completed as quickly as 21 days. This means that if a pigeon swallows an insect the day after worming, within 21 days it will have tapeworms again. It is therefore important to minimize the birds' exposure to insects. Weevils are one of the insects that can carry tapeworm and so seed that either has or has had weevils in it (look for the little bored holes) must be avoided. Within the loft, slaters are the most common insect carrying tapeworm. When disturbed, slaters roll themselves into balls, which I think pigeons mistake for peas, because these balls are a similar size and colour. To prevent reinfection, it is therefore best to spray out the loft with Permethrin Solution simultaneously with a Prazivet treatment. Permethrin has a residual effect for 4 months.
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