OK to feed these starter crumbles to an egg-laying hen?

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Eggsume2Consume

Eggsume2Consume

In the Brooder
Feb 26, 2017
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Hello! We have an egg-laying hen who ate a bunch of starter crumbles. Wondering if the eggs are safe to eat. I see recommendations to avoid for a couple weeks if the feed was medicated. Is this feed medicated? It doesn't advertise itself as such but we don't know what to look for.

It also says not to feed to chicks over 8 weeks old on the label as well as to not feed it to sheep as the copper content is too high for sheep. Has us a bit worried about the eggs.

If the eggs are fine, a follow up question: is it safe for us to mix this in slowly into their feed until it's gone instead of throwing it away?

Thanks for any advice!!

Here's photos of the label (click to make bigger):



 
The eggs are fine, and yes, its ok to mix it with layer feed. If you can get a hold of some oyster shell and put that in a separate feeder, then all the better. Some members may advise against my suggestion, but I certainly never waste perfectly good chicken feed and I most certainly could never advise anyone else to do so.
 
My criteria regarding feed is that it should be fresh. 6 weeks after mill date, it starts to lose nutrients, and go rancid. I did not see any information on your labels regarding the addition of Amprolium, so your feed should be fine.
 
If it doesn't say "Medicated" on the bag, then it isn't. Amprolium is the only "medication" in medicated chick feed, and it's not really what you think. Amprolium is simply a B-vitamin blocker to thwart the cocci parasite. It has no antibiotics in it.

That said, chick starter is practically the exact same thing as an all flock feed such as Purina Flock Raiser. I stopped into my local feed store last week to pick up some chick starter for my two newly hatched chicks, and I decided to compare the ingredients with Flock Raiser.

What I read made me stuff the chick starter back onto the shelf and leave the store without buying any. The ingredients are practically identical - another ploy by manufacturers to get customers to spend more money. I just added Poultry Nutri-drench to the chicks' water for the first week, and called it done.

So feeding any chick starter to any adult chickens is about the same as feeding them an all flock feed. Don't sweat it.
 
Thanks all for the advice! We've been eating the eggs and mixed the remaining starter feed in with their normal feed.
 

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