worming zebra fiches

zebra breeder · Post by **zebra breeder** » Tue May 30, 2006 5:05 am

how many times a year should you worm zebra finches?is it ok to worm them every three months?

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Tue May 30, 2006 8:07 pm

Are your birds housed indoors or outdoors and do you feed them any live food?

zebra breeder · Post by **zebra breeder** » Wed May 31, 2006 3:58 am

Crystal wrote:Are your birds housed indoors or outdoors and do you feed them any live food?

they are outdoors.....they are fed only seeds,cuttle fish,and greens,no live foods

Crystal · Post by **Crystal** » Wed May 31, 2006 9:41 pm

You may want to follow the recommendations on the label of whatever dewormer you are using. Worm-out gel recommends treating aviary flocks at least 4 times per year; I think once every 3 months for outdoor birds at moderate to high risk seems reasonable, though if we were talking about indoor birds with no real exposure to worms--I would treat anually at most. It is possible for internal parasites to become resistant to wormers (although this tends to be a slower process than bacterial resistence to antibiotics) so that is a concern to consider.

Ideally you would only treat for worms as needed--it is good to deworm all new incoming birds during their quarantine, and any birds that test positive for having worms; but from a practicality standpoint, especially when you are dealing with large numbers of birds, sometimes you have to just treat everybody as per a reasonable schedule.