7 Dangers of Ivermectin for Chickens

Ivermectin for chickens is a thing of the past.

As we find out the many risks of giving our animals unnatural substances, we’re shying away from them more and more.

Are your chickens showing signs of worms? If so, you need to act quickly.

The question is; should you use ivermectin or put your faith in a natural alternative?

I’ll answer that question below.

First, let’s talk about the seven dangers of ivermectin for chickens.

7 Dangers of Ivermectin for Chickens

Below I’ll break down seven reasons to avoid ivermectin for chickens as well as other unnatural treatments for chickens.

1. Interactions

I give my chickens a large variety of herbs, edible flowers and spices. I do so instead of treating them with unnatural chemical compounds (more on that to come).

While mixing the two (herbs and ivermectin) isn’t a worry of mine because I don’t use ivermectin for chickens or any of my other poultry or fowl, let me give you some words of caution.

The effects of some drugs can change if your chickens are given other drugs or herbal products at the same time. This can increase their risk for serious side effects or may cause chemical treatment(s) to not work properly. These drug interactions are very possible but do not always happen.

Most unnatural medicines come with a warning to not mix with herbal treatments or other drugs. This should make you wary of using them, not only because it proves how incompatible unnatural treatments are with nature itself but also because there can be serious consequences to bad drug interactions.

Of course, it goes without saying that you may not know how negatively ivermectin affects your chickens just by looking at them. They can experience symptoms that are not obvious to you.

2. Side Effects

Because it’s impossible for us to ask chickens how they felt after being given ivermectin, I’m going to list the human side effects. It’s safe to say that at least some symptoms are similar for chickens.

Human Side Effects:

• Headache
• Dizziness
• Muscle Pain
• Nausea
• Joint Pain
• Eye Swelling
• Eye Redness
• Eye Pain
• Weakness
• Vision Changes
• Itching
• Rash
• Fever

Very Serious Human Side Effects:

• Neck Pain
• Back Pain
• Trouble Breathing
• Swelling (face, arms, hands and /or feet)
• Chest Pain
• Fast Heartbeat
• Confusion
• Seizures
• Loss of Consciousness

Again, we obviously can’t say for sure if chickens experience all of these side effects but common sense tells us that they may experience many of them.

The signs of these side effects in chickens may look like the following.

Side Effect Signs in Chickens

• Weakness
• Lethargy
• Gasping for Air
• Loose Stools
• Loss of Appetite
• Closed Eyes
• Keeping Head and Neck Close to Body
• Stumbling
• Lack of Responsiveness
• Death

3. Toxicity

Whether you’re using ivermectin externally or internally, toxicity can occur if a chicken is given an excessive dose of the medication. Also, certain chickens can be hypersensitive to certain medications (the same goes for humans). In these chickens, ivermectin can be toxic or even deadly at any dose.

4. Chemical Residue

When your chicken eliminates the remnants of the ivermectin treatment through their stools that then becomes a part of their environment.

The chickens will do what chickens do and incorporate the manure into the ground by scratching and digging, the manure will break down and compost but the chemical residue will remain in their environment.

This not only can negatively affect the immunity of your chickens long-term, it can also negatively affect the health of the ground they walk on by damaging the soil’s microbiome.

5. Your Chicken’s Immunity

The immunity of my chickens is of utmost importance. In no way do I want to compromise my chickens’ immune systems.

Each time your chicken is given an unnatural substance it negatively affects their “gut” health. The microorganisms that live in their digestive systems are very sensitive and can be killed pretty easily by unnatural chemical compounds.

The alternative is giving your chickens a natural dewormer/preventative that not only helps eliminate worms, it also improves your chickens’ immunity at the same time (more on this below).

6. Generational Immunity

Not only do I strive for ironclad immunity in my individual chickens, I also strive for stronger and stronger immunity with each new generation of my flock.

When mom and dad have strong immunity, they pass it on!

If, however, your breeding stock’s immunity is compromised by unnatural chemical treatments, that compromised immunity will be passed down to the next generation.

7. Passing Chemicals to Their Eggs

There are egg withdrawal recommendations after giving your chickens ivermectin. This means that you should not eat your chicken’s eggs or cull and eat a chicken’s meat during this withdrawal time. The recommendation is anywhere between 7-14 days or as long as 30 days, depending on the source.

This withdrawal warning after the use of ivermectin should be enough to make us all turn to all-natural solutions for parasites.

If the eggs and meat are unsafe for you after using ivermectin then why use it on your chickens in the first place? If it’s unsafe/unhealthy for you at very low levels, how can it be safe/healthy for them? That’s obviously a very surface-level question but for me, that’s all the sense I need to make of it. Unsafe/unhealthy for me = unsafe/unhealthy for my chickens.

Plus, how can you be sure that no more chemical residue is in the eggs or meat after that time? The answer is; you can’t know for sure.

Safe, Cheap and Effective All-natural Alternatives

Below I’ll tell you exactly what I use to prevent and treat parasites instead of using ivermectin for chickens.

These natural alternatives are not something I consider alternatives. I consider them the best and only options for my chickens. Not only because I care about their health and safety but because I care for mine and my land’s as well.

1. Apple Cider Vinegar

Apple cider vinegar (ACV) is my #1 go-to for my chickens as well as every other animal I own.

Parasites are better able to infest an animal that is on the unhealthy side. When you feed apple cider vinegar to your chickens you not only add healthy acids to your chickens’ digestive systems which helps kill and flush parasites, you’re also greatly improving their overall immunity, making their bodies less desirable/able for parasites to inhabit.

2. Garlic

Garlic in any form (fresh, juiced, powdered) but especially its fresh form is very effective at preventing and treating parasites in chickens.

Garlic has the ability to completely eradicate parasites at all life-cycles. Garlic has been proven to effectively kill parasites and control secondary fungal infections. It also detoxifies the body while stimulating elimination. Additionally, garlic has antioxidant properties that protect against oxidation caused by parasite toxins.

The compounds in garlic that are most effective at killing parasites are allicin and ajoene. To release the allicin in garlic you must break it apart in some way or another. I like to crush fresh garlic and toss it into my chickens’ water.

In a study published by the Alexandria Journal of Medicine stated that “…the survival rate recorded in this study was 95.8% for both immunocompetent and immunosuppressed groups of mice.”

The same study concluded that its results “…validates the traditional use of the plant in parasitic infections.” proving that garlic consumed for the purpose of preventing and treating parasites is indeed effective.

3. Pumpkin Seeds

Pumpkin seeds are able to kill eggs and they contain a natural toxin to parasite eggs. Curcurbitin in pumpkin seeds has shown to be anti-parasitic since it has the ability to paralyze worms so they drop off the intestinal walls. This substance is also known to intoxicate the worms causing them to release their grip from the intestinal walls, ceasing the blood sucking activity. Chinese scientists have successfully used pumpkin seeds to treat acute infestations.

A few pumpkin seeds will not do the trick. If you suspect an infestation in your flock you need to grind up a generous amount of pumpkin seeds and add them to your chickens’ food. Do this 3-4 times within a week’s time for good results.

4. Diatomaceous Earth

Diatomaceous earth is beneficial to add to your chickens’ dust bath to kill and prevent external parasites.

For internal parasites, diatomaceous earth is a good natural, anti-parasitic treatment. It also attracts bacteria, fungi, viruses, pesticides, chemical residues and helps your chicken’s body eliminate them.

While some people claim that diatomaceous earth is useless once it becomes wet within your chicken’s digestive system, I’ve always relied on it as a natural dewormer, even if it does nothing more than add healthy and inexpensive minerals to my birds’ diets.

For those of you who have faith in DE even once it’s wet, it’s said to have the ability to eliminate larger parasites found in the stomach.

My recommendation is to not rely on just one of these all-natural treatments but instead use all of them, regularly and/or in rotation. That way if something like DE doesn’t eliminate every parasite in your chicken’s system, the ACV, garlic and/or pumpkin seeds will finish the job.

Dosages of Natural Parasite Preventatives

As I covered above, you can do a lot of damage by overdosing ivermectin for chickens. When it comes to natural treatments and preventions, the risk of giving your chickens too much of a natural treatment to the point of risking and/or damaging their health is hard to do. You would have to feed a whole lot of something, for a drawn-out period of time for it to do harm.

When it comes to natural remedies the key is to give everything in moderation.

What Moderation Looks Like

• ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar per 5 gallons of water
• ¼ cup dried garlic in 5 gallons of food
• 5-6 crushed cloves of fresh garlic per 5 gallons of water
• ½ cup of ground up pumpkin seeds in 1 gallon of feed
• sprinkle of diatomaceous earth (food grade) in feed
• sprinkle of diatomaceous earth (food grade) on coop/run ground

The above measurements are examples and a rough guide. If I see signs of something like coccidiosis in my chickens then I’ll up the apple cider vinegar and garlic in their feed and water, and feed pumpkin seeds for a longer period of time.

I’ve even put a cup of each of the above in a 5-gallon bucket of feed. Not every day but when I suspect a health concern in my flock.

How Often to Feed Preventative Dewormers

How often you feed the above natural preventatives will determine your flock’s parasite resistance and immunity.

It’s also important for me to note that the healthier your flock is generation to generation will determine how often you need to feed preventatives.

For example, I had to feed the above natural preventatives my first generation of chickens (the breeding stock I purchased) religiously, throughout their entire lives, otherwise, they’d drop dead on me. That’s no exaggeration. The breeding stock I purchased from several different breeders across the country all had such poor immune systems from all of the generations before them being given things like ivermectin and being fed feed with chemical residues that it did a number on their guts that there were many, many casualties in the beginning.

The first generation of chickens I hatched from my breeding stock was so much healthier (by leaps and bounds!) that I lost very few chickens and had to give the above preventatives nowhere near as often. Each generation will get stronger and stronger and eventually won’t need much in the way of preventatives. A healthy organic diet is just about all they’ll need. The apple cider vinegar, garlic, pumpkin seeds and DE will all serve as healthy bonuses to their diets but won’t be necessary to sustain the life of my flock like with the first-generation breeding stock.

If you purchase chicks from a hatchery or breeder who gives unnatural chemical dewormers then you’ll likely need to feed all-natural preventatives on a regular (weekly/bi-weekly) basis.

You Are What Your Eat Eats

My favorite quote of Michael Pollan’s is “You are what your eat eats.” In other words, if you give your chickens (orally or topically) any unnatural chemical compounds to prevent or treat any health issue it will affect the health of whatever of theirs you yourself consume (meat and/or eggs).

If you want to consume only the healthiest eggs and meat from your chickens then what they eat is of utmost importance. Your health from what you eat is dependent on what your food eats, whether that’s a cabbage or a cow. What your food feeds on to grow determines its health and its health determines your health.

So, for the sake of your health, put your faith in these all-natural preventatives and treatments. Yes, it’s more work and planning on your part, but the rewards will outweigh the extra effort.