Chickens don't really like to be pilled, but they dislike it even more when the pill leaves a bad taste. Unfortunately many medicines taste bitter, and if you need to pill a chicken over a long period of time, they will really start hating pill time. So to prevent the unpleasant taste, you can encapsulate the bitter pill in an empty capsule. It works amazingly well and even facilitates the swallowing of the pill!
That was a game changer for us. Summer, one of our hens, has a cancerous tumor that can be kept under control with an hormone blocker which means daily medication for life. The drug is really bitter and the daily pilling became quite aversive. Until a friend suggested to encapsulate the unpleasant medicine. I bought vegan capsules (by default they are made of gelatin) and that made a huge difference. Summer doesn't run to me to get her pill but she doesn't run away anymore.
Since we are talking about pilling chickens, here is a little video on how to pill a chicken we made a few years ago.
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