If you’ve ever searched for good, solid information about raising chickens, you’ve found it in Gail Damerow’s books. Actually, much of the advice out there on the internet originally came from Gail’s writings (often passed around so many times that she is no longer credited.) When I started out with chickens more than fifteen years ago, (before Google!) the go-to source for advice were Gail’s Chicken Health Handbook and her Storey’s Guide to Raising Chickens, and her books continue to be the first place that I look for answers to my chicken-keeping questions.

Over the years, I’ve learned from Gail’s sage advice, and adapted it to a climate, set-up and perspective that is different than hers. Gail has a sustainable hobby farm in Tennessee, with many productive animals; I have a small flock of hens, some laying, some retired, tucked into a suburban neighborhood in New England. Despite the differences, Gail and I have plenty of commonalities. So, when the folks at Storey Publishing asked me if I’d host a Q & A with Gail on my blog to promote her most recent book, The Chicken Encyclopedia, I jumped at the chance. And what do you think was the one thing I wanted to ask her about? Something pretty, like a fancy chicken breed? Or maybe what she thinks about using broody hens for incubation? No. Of course nothing that charming. I’ve been thinking about gapeworms. These are parasites that live in the chicken’s throat and actually makes the bird gasp for air. It’s an icky, disgusting topic – perfect for the interview!

Luckily, I’ve never seen gapeworm myself. But, every so often someone asks me about a hen who has her neck stretched out and sort-of coughing. Could it be gapeworm? Surely, Gail must have seen them firsthand. Here is my email conversation with Gail:

Terry: Have you had any cases of gapeworm on your farm?

Gail: Not on this farm, where we’ve lived for 30 years. Gapeworm is not all that common. But I recall seeing it some 40+ years ago, when I first started out with chickens.

Terry: Is it true that a chicken with gapeworms looks similar to one that has a respiratory disease?

Gail: Yes.

Terry: How is it the same?

Gail: The chicken gasps, sneezes, coughs, and develops general symptoms of disease (loss of energy, loss of appetite, etc.)

Terry: How is it different?

Gail: The chicken makes grunting sounds, stretches its neck and appears to be yawning, shakes its head in trying to dislodge worms from its windpipe, and sometimes coughs up a worm.

Terry: Can you actually look down the throat and see the worms, or is a firm diagnosis only done with a necropsy? Fecal test?

Gail: Looking in the throat you might see lumps, which may or may not be gapeworm. If the infestation is really severe, and you can crank the chicken’s mouth open and peer down with a flashlight, you might spot attached worms. Finding a gapeworm (which can be up to 2 cm long) that’s been coughed up would offer a definitive diagnosis. A fecal test would reveal gapeworm eggs in the droppings.

Terry: Do you recommend a wormer?

Gail: The most common parasitic worm in chickens is roundworm, for which the most common wormer (and the only one approved for use with poultry) is Piperazine, which does not affect gapeworm. For that you need something stronger and off-label, such as ivermectin.

Terry: Thanks for shedding some light on this rather icky, wiggly, subject!

This exchange is a good reminder that you should seek advice from chicken keepers with years of experience. Use caution and commonsense when looking for answers on-line. If you do an internet search for chicken respiratory issues, gapeworm will pop up, as if this is a prevalent cause of breathing issues. I’ve seen countless on-line discussions which toss up gapeworms as a probable cause for coughing in a flock. It’s like when you have a sore throat, troll online for ideas for relief, and an hour later you’re sure that your windpipe will have to be removed due to a rare, tropical disease! If Gail hasn’t seen a case of gapeworms in 40 years, then it’s unlikely that you will. Which is a good thing. Gapeworms sure sound nasty.

(If you do have first-hand experience with gapeworms, I’l like to hear about it!)

GIVEAWAY! I have one copy of The Chicken Encyclopedia to give away. All you have to do to enter is to leave a comment on this blog telling me what you would have asked Gail. (But, since I can’t do another interview with her, I’ll answer them the best that I can.) The contest ends March 17 at 10 pm EDT. Storey will be mailing the book directly to the winner, and has limited this giveaway to addresses in the US. (I appreciate my international readers, and I promise that I’ll have another giveaway soon that will include you!)

update: this contest is now closed. Thanks to everyone for entering!

More than a dozen blogs were on this tour. You can see the other stops here:

I’ve been collecting vintage photos of people and their chickens. Some are humorous, some are beautiful, some are evocative of another time and place, and some I relate to on an emotional level. I’ve selected the best images, and have sent them off to a photographer who is doing photoshop magic on them to fix fading and damage. The next step is to publish these images. I have my choice of either a book of 30 postcards (which you could pull out and use, or keep the collection) or a small gift book of the photos with commentary. Which would you prefer?

I’ve had hard frosts in my backyard right into the end of May, but this year the winter has been unseasonably mild and I think that this spring will be a warm one, too. So, I decided to take a chance and plant early. I’m eager to sow the cool-season crops, like parsley, kale and spinach. Although the beds look ready for planting, there’s one chore to do before I can plant. There are bad bugs lurking in the leaves and the dirt, and I know just who can dispose of them.

Yesterday I lured the Gems into the fenced vegetable garden and shut the gate behind them. The chickens would rather be in the pumpkin patch or the woods, but they soon understood the task at hand. The Gems set right to work. Go get ’em, girls!

Today I planted the greens. Today, when the girls had their free-range outing, they were on the other side of the fence.

Problem 1:  Chickens need to get plenty of fresh air and exercise. They need soft dirt to scratch in. They do best on a varied diet that includes greens and bugs. In the summer they need shade and some cool earth to lie in. Much of the day my chickens are confined to a packed-dirt pen. It’s not optimum.

Problem 2:  Every day, I fill a bucket on my kitchen counter with the scraps from my kitchen endeavors. There are onion peels, over-toasted waffles and carrot scrapings, coffee grinds and desiccated oranges. I’d like the hens to get the good stuff, but even chickens won’t eat all of it. How to feed the chickens the worthwhile bits and compost the rest without sorting through these dregs? I have other stuff to compost, too, including weeds and damaged vegetables from the garden, and the muck and trampled on hay from the goat stall. There’s a lot of material from different sources, but I don’t want to fuss with it. I want one easy pile.

Two problems, one solution: build a compost bin in the chicken run. The hens will eat what they like, and shred everything else into little bits. In the summer it becomes a cool, damp respite from the heat. In the winter it’s the one spot that’s not frozen that they can dig in. At all times there are yummy morsels to eat and bugs to unearth. It’s barely any effort for me – the chickens do all of the work of mincing the material and turning it over. Soon enough, it decomposes, shrinks in size, and it turns into good garden soil.

I’ve sited a compost area to the side of the little barn. I’ve put a sturdy piece of fencing blocking it off, but have left openings on both sides. The two exits ensure that the hens don’t get trapped in a corner or bullied.

If you don’t see the chickens on the HenCam, this is where they are.

The rest of the chicken yard I keep raked and tidy. As I mentioned in a previous post, I compost the chicken manure elsewhere. I move that away from where the hens live, so that I break any potential parasitic lifecycle.

Early in the springtime, the compost gets forked out. Later in the summer, when it fills up again, I’ll shovel it out once more.

The bottom is dark brown, rich earth. The top isn’t fully decomposed, but that goes, too. There’s a big patch in the meadow where nothing grows because the soil is so thin and poor. The compost is dumped there. While doing this chore, the chickens are allowed out, and they help to spread it.

Four years ago I created a pumpkin patch in the meadow with with compost from the chicken run. Look at how beautiful the soil there is now! The hens are busy eating up overwintering garden pests. Good work, girls!

You can see all of this in person. There’s still a few remaining slots in the Chicken Keeping Workshops. Come either March 31 or April 14.

From here:

To here:

Jealous?