# Worming with Ivermectin - Can I feed the milk to my chickens?



## The Egg Bandit (Jun 2, 2010)

Hi y'all.  I'm going to be worming my heavy milkers today with ivermectin.  I hate to waste all that milk, but they are losing condition and I have to worm them now.  Can I give this milk to my chickens and still eat their eggs?  I'm gonna post this on BackyardChickens too, but I'd love y'all's input too.  Thanks!


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## aggieterpkatie (Jun 2, 2010)

I don't think that'd be a good idea. You may as well be drinking the milk if you're going to do that.  

Why don't you use it as fertilizer instead?  It's good as a fertilizer if you dilute it with water.


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## Chirpy (Jun 2, 2010)

I've not fed it to my chickens (since we eat their eggs everyday) but I do give it to my dogs and cats.


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## The Egg Bandit (Jun 2, 2010)

I don't like to give too much milk to my dogs and cats, due to the goopy poo it seems to generate.  But maybe a little to them and a little to the fruit trees.  

Can I give it to the pullets and cockerels that aren't in the laying flock yet?


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## Chirpy (Jun 2, 2010)

You are right about the milk and dogs and cats.  I should have mentioned that I only give them a little and not every day when using it on my milk goats.

I don't know any health reasons why you could not give it to younger chickens (who are not laying) but I'm not a vet either so hopefully someone will jump in here if that's wrong.  I wouldn't give it to them until you know for sure it cannot hurt them in the diluted milk.


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## chandasue (Jun 2, 2010)

I could be wrong but the problem I see with giving it to the chickens would be that it's like giving them a diluted dosage of the wormer and could lead to the worms becoming more resistant to the drug.


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## The Egg Bandit (Jun 2, 2010)

Very interesting.  So maybe my chickens' worms develop an immunity to the wormer I am using to clear up my goats.  But maybe my chickens don't have worms.  ?  They seem perfectly healthy.

EEK!  This is all so complicated.


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## ohiofarmgirl (Jun 3, 2010)

we do this (give withheld milk to chickens and dogs/cats) without any problems. 

but we only use it as a wormer once a year.  unless you use it a lot i cant imagine that your hens would develop a resistance to it. 

remember that ivermec is used to treat people too:

http://www.stromectol-ivermectin.in...n_Treating_Parasitic_Infection_in_People.html

see the side effects (pretty much none unless you have existing liver problems). but by the time it cycles thru your goat and thru your chickens i'm not sure how much would be left by the time it gets to you.

i know one woman who only withholds her just-wormed-goatmilk for 3 days.

but everyone has their tolerances for how they manage their barnyard.


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## freemotion (Jun 3, 2010)

Am I the one who withholds it for three days?  I do.  Only because one of my dogs told me to....   I give him a tablespoon or so of milk when I strain it and he refused to drink it after worming with ivermectin last year.  He refused it for three days.  He's never refused it, ever.  So I decided to trust him.

I would have no problem giving it to the pullets and cockerels.  It is so diluted.  I would give it to the layers and pigs, too.  I have not wormed my chickens, though.  Do you worm your chickens with ivermectin?  If it is a different class of wormer, then the residual ivermectin will have no impact on resistance.

I ended up freezing the tainted milk in ice cube trays, transferring it to ziplocs once frozen.  I make soap with it.  A year later, I still have some, as my doe was really producing for those three days!


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## aggieterpkatie (Jun 3, 2010)

Oh, one more thing about feeding the ivermectin milk to dogs.....ivermectin is HIGHLY deadly to some breeds like collies and australian shepherds!!!  Make sure you don't give it to breeds with an ivermectin sensitivity!


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## ohiofarmgirl (Jun 3, 2010)

> Am I the one who withholds it for three days?


nope! hee hee hee 

the gal i got one of my milkers from told me this..we laughed that at least she doesnt have worms!


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## Aped (Jun 3, 2010)

well I guess I wormed myself because I didn't throw any of the milk away when I wormed my doe. Safeguard paste says you don't have to throw milk away and although I couldn't find that little statement on the ivermectin paste. I still used the milk. Oh well, no harm done. I don't think I'll make a habit of it though.


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## ohiofarmgirl (Jun 3, 2010)

makes you wonder what they use in the dairy industry, huh?
;-)

i think they use ivermec for all kinds of stock and as far as i could tell (from my research) they wont say WHAT the milk withholding period is. we generally use 30 days for the chemical wormers.

but congrats on being worm free!


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## Roll farms (Jun 3, 2010)

I've been drinking / cooking with milk w/ ivomec, safeguard, and valbazen in it for years....and eggs w/ ivomec and wazine.
And milk w/ pen G and oxytet, too....

(We use drugs pretty infrequently, and we milk everyone into one big bucket, and I guess I decided long ago that the trace amounts left in the milk of 1, would be diluted by the milk of the other 5-8 we're milking.)

I am still alive....at least that's the rumor. 

I worked in a wire harness factory for years, inhaling and handling chemicals that plainly stated, "Warning, this product is know to cause cancer."  If an employee became pregnant, she was put on leave to keep from exposing the fetus to chemicals.

I guess that sort of desensitized me to fretting over trace amounts of dewormers that they use on humans anyway.

I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about it, but if someone forgets and drinks it....I'm living proof that it won't make you turn green or grow a 2nd head.


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## ()relics (Jun 4, 2010)

Roll farms said:
			
		

> .....
> 
> I'm not saying you shouldn't worry about it, but if someone forgets and drinks it....I'm living proof that it won't make you turn green or grow a 2nd head.


Do we really know this to be a fact ?....I mean the green and 2 heads....


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## Roll farms (Jun 4, 2010)

You've seen me....

Of course, I did wear a bag over my second head, and put movie makeup on to cover the green face.


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## jlbpooh (Jun 4, 2010)




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