The Poultry Keeper

garden_gal · Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 7 Location: St Austell

Firstly, we are so excited, we got our first egg this morning and when we came home from work this afternoon, there were 2 more. With the 3 hens we have, hopefully that was one each - but how do we know.
We didn't eat them as we read on here that we shouldn't eat the first ones, but we cracked them and they were so perfect - well except that the whites were quite thick.
Could some of you experienced guys give us some advice please about worming and de-lousing. How do we know if our girls have got lice. They don't like being handled (only had them 3 weeks) but 2 of them will let us stoke them a little bit and all will hand feed a bit. Can you recommend a wormer also please.
Thanks

milkmaid · Joined: 19 Apr 2005 Posts: 7367 Location: isle of lewis

is that first ones since worming or antibiotics
there is no reason not to eat your first eggs otherwise ,
if you use flabovet (sp)then there is no egg withdrawl ,for worming
quite often you can tell if birds have lice as their back ends get a bit messy
or you can just pick them off the perch at night ,they are much quiter at night and shine a torch at their bums ,between the feathers if you see crawly things there you might have lice on your birds
the thick whites show that you are looking after your birds well and the eggs are really fresh Cool

garden_gal · Joined: 14 Jun 2008 Posts: 7 Location: St Austell

Thanks milkmaid, that is very helpful

blueangelical · Joined: 03 Jul 2008 Posts: 5 Location: StOkEoNtHeTrEnT

think that would be 1 each, read somewhere it takes them 25 hours to produce an egg from start to finish.. wav

Auntie Noo · Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 615 Location: Guildford

As far as I know there are 2 worming treatments available. Verm-X and Flubenvet - Verm-x is given I think monthly (anyone confirm that?) Verm-x comes ineither liquid to add to their water or little pellets to add to their food, and Flubenvet just twice a year, and it's a powder which you mix into their food at a rate of (err I forget actually but think it's about a teaspoon to 5kg food, added with a bit of veg or olive oil to make it stick to the pellets) I do it the first weeks of March and October.

Hope that Helps.