Your thoughts on herbal wormers

Ariel301

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Does anyone here have any experience with any of the herbal wormer products out there? If so, what did you use, and did you like it/think it was effective?

We are trying to keep our farm as organic and chemical-free as we can. We believe in not medicating our animals unless they need it. I am seeing a lot of herbal wormers out there that claim you can use them without having to toss out the milk like you would with a regular chemical one. That seems pretty attractive, especially since looking at the ingredient list on some, it could be possible to grow all the ingredients myself and further add to our self-sufficiency and minimize our reliance on big drug companies to cure us and our animals when they have no real interest in doing that at all. (We absolutely do treat our animals with a medication if they are sick and really need treatment, don't worry!) But, I know with herbal stuff there is often little regulation and little research/scientific evaluation, and there's a lot of quacks out there selling useless stuff.

I'm just curious if anyone is using any of these herbal wormers, and are they really working?

Please be nice and not start a fight, I know it's a controversial subject. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. :)
 

ksalvagno

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I used Molly's Herbal wormers. I used both 1 & 2 in the way that Molly suggested. I have 17 goats. For me personally, I was disappointed with the results. I ended up worming my goats with the regular chemical wormers. I would still like to try and find some sort of herb or combination of herbs that would work for my goats but so far haven't found that magic combination.

I will keep looking though. I don't like the fact that more and more chemical wormers aren't working or extremely high doses are needed to work. So I would like to find a way to either eliminate or drastically reduce the use of chemical wormers.
 

Calliopia

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The only natural worming thing I have seen work was carrots on a puppy.

We had a rescue that was full of worms. Didn't realize it until after she ate the carrots. She thieved the first one and chewed on it like a toy. Next day out came a huge worm load. I waited a couple days. Fed her 2 or 3 more.. Another large worm load.
 

freemotion

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I use herbals. I also have a bottle of Ivomec in my fridge and I don't hesitate to use it.

In order to use herbals successfully, I felt that I needed to get a microscope and slides, etc, and learn to do my own fecal exams. Also become very familiar with FAMACHA. I used Molly's Herbals my first year and am now experimenting with herb formulas of my own devising. I am hoping to find some combinations that work well on my property and with my goats, and ultimately create a sturdy herd. We will see.

So far I have only used the Ivomec twice this year, once with a buckling that was weaned and moved here on what turned out to be the start of a very long and very hot heat wave. I suspect all that stress made a huge bloom of worms, so he got the Ivomec, then has been doing well on the herbals all summer and fall.

The other was an older doe who was doing great, I was watching her eyelids get a little lighter and was working with the herbals and monitoring her closely....then a neighbor threw a bunch of white bread into my pasture :he and this started a downward cascade with this doe....in a matter of a few days she got very anemic, so I switched to Ivomec, and she also became very copper deficient, and her milk production dropped overnight from over 3 quarts to under one quart. She is back where she needs to be now, though, and back to herbals.

What I am saying is that you need to monitor your goats very closely whether you chose to go the herbal route or the medical route, and what works on your property with your goats may not be the same as what works next door or across the country. What works with most goats in your herd may not work with all the goats in your herd. So just keep a watchful eye and be prepared.

My goal is to grow all my own herbs for this, too. I will be looking for wormwood in the spring, I have everything else on the herbal lists except clove, which I will not be able to grow here in New England! :p
 

chandasue

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I use it too but not exclusively. It does seem to reduce the frequency that I have to use Ivomec so I continue to use the herbals. I think consistency is important. If you're going to use it ya gotta stick with it. I also give them pumpkin/winter squash seeds when I cook one up and the one goat that is almost always lower on the Famancha chart than the other two is the biggest pig on those, as if she knows she needs it more. :idunno
 

Ariel301

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Calliopia said:
The only natural worming thing I have seen work was carrots on a puppy.

We had a rescue that was full of worms. Didn't realize it until after she ate the carrots. She thieved the first one and chewed on it like a toy. Next day out came a huge worm load. I waited a couple days. Fed her 2 or 3 more.. Another large worm load.
Yuck! I've never heard of carrots as a dewormer, that's a new one on me.

I do have a microscope and run my own fecals, I also regularly (monthly at least) check the goats' eyelids against a FAMACHA chart. I haven't noticed a big problem with worms in any of my animals so far, though I am thinking I do have a cocci problem since I have had trouble with slow growing kids.

I have a neighbor who grows wormwood to worm her goats, and they all look to be in really good condition, fat and shiny. She's giving me some to put in my garden. I do really like the idea of being able to produce some of my own herbal medicines, with times the way they are, and money being short.
 

cmjust0

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I've never used any of the herbals, but I have watched carefully as other people use them.. Time and again, what I've seen are people -- not just here, either -- who say they worked until summer, at which point they had to use a conventional, chemical dewormer once or twice -- but after that, it was all smooth sailing.

Thing is, summer is barberpole season. If your wormer seems to work until barberpole season comes around, all it really means is that your wormer "worked" until it was expected to actually *do something,* at which point it failed.

In my mind, that kinda makes it a failure. Period.

Now, on the topic of deworming foods...carrots, etc...I've also heard claim that pumpkins are natural dewormers. A good friend of mine swears by it, and grows a big patch every year. In the Fall, usually after the first frost, he harvests his pumpkins and tosses them out to the goats. They go nuts eating the pumpkins and -- lo and behold -- eyelids get pinker, etc.

Notice my use of the word "Fall" in there...Fall being when barberpoles go dormant anyway.

Coincidence?



Why, yes. Yes it is. :/
 

cmjust0

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Ariel301 said:
I have a neighbor who grows wormwood to worm her goats, and they all look to be in really good condition, fat and shiny. She's giving me some to put in my garden. I do really like the idea of being able to produce some of my own herbal medicines, with times the way they are, and money being short.
You could also kill worms with azaleas or wilted cherry leaves...worms can't live in a dead goat, afterall, and either of the above WILL kill a goat.

Point being that a lot of the stuff "they" use in herbal dewormers are toxic, and that just because something's "natural" doesn't mean it can't be harmful.. Wormwood, for example, contains a chemical called 'thujone,' which is the primary ingredient in a drink called Absinthe.

Van Gogh was blitzed on Absinthe when he cut his ear off, and yes, it's possible to fatally O/D on thujone.

Just sayin'. :)
 

Calliopia

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I will agree with CM a bit on this one.

Herbals can be DEADLY when used improperly.


As to carrots... Not sure if it was the texture, something in them, if they irritated her bowels enough to expel EVERYTHING including the worms... But I tested it by giving her some pretty good doses of carrots and seeing what followed and then 2 weeks later or so tried worming with a chemical dog wormer and got next to nothing. So something in that situation was causing the carrots to act as a catalyst for worm expulsion.
 

cmjust0

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Calliopia said:
I will agree with CM a bit on this one.

Herbals can be DEADLY when used improperly.


As to carrots... Not sure if it was the texture, something in them, if they irritated her bowels enough to expel EVERYTHING including the worms... But I tested it by giving her some pretty good doses of carrots and seeing what followed and then 2 weeks later or so tried worming with a chemical dog wormer and got next to nothing. So something in that situation was causing the carrots to act as a catalyst for worm expulsion.
Worms you can see are almost always tapeworms, so a quick google for 'carrot tapeworms' (oh, the things I google. :/ ) turns up quite a few stories. Enough to give me some faith in carrots for tapeworm issues, actually.

Seems to be a 'mechanical' thing, though -- not a chemical thing. That is to say...all that fiber apparently makes a tapeworm live pretty hard.

Having said that, one might speculate that all the fiber in a goat's natural diet may have something to do with why goats aren't all that prone to tapeworms in the first place..

:hu
 
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