When are baby chicks to old to get cocci

I am not sure if I am posting this in the right place .

I was wondering when are babies to old to get cocci. At what age can you get worrying about it ? It lives in the ground where I live. Everytime I put babies on the ground here they catch, so from now on I am planning to leave them off the ground until they are old enought where I want have to worry.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

I believe that they can get it at any age, but they hopefully have an immunity to it by the time they reach maturity.

Do you give your chicks medicated feed? If you do it helps the chicks build up an immunity to cocci so when they are introduced to the dirt they shouldn't have a problem with it.

I could be wrong and if I am you'll know it! So will I. But this info is to the best of my knowledge.

I think it is just so strong in the ground here the medicated feed doesn't hold up against, but I still feed medicated. They funny thing is it only happens to chicks I order or hatch out of my incubator the chicks I raise with hens never have a problem with it. I guess it is one of those thing.

I just lost a 14 week old to it. She had been running on the ground since 4 weeks old. She was on medicated feed as well.

They never are too old. Let's look at how cocci and meds work.

First, cocci are present in nearly every soil sample around you. They're easiliy carried by wild birds and can stay inactive but with potential viability for longer than you can imagine in dry conditions.

There are approximately 9 species of cocci, a protazoa, which cause the illness "coccidiosis". If your chicks are vaccinated for it at the hatchery, they usually receive a vaccination against 3 of the most common species. More on vaccines later.

There are various types of "medicated" foods, but the one recommended for backyard poultry use contains "amprolium".

Amprolium usually comes in two strengths.

"Coccidiostat" is the strength found in medicated foods. It's a strength that kills some cocci, allows just enough for the birds to get a good exposure to just enough cocci so that their body recognizes it as a threat and creates a long-standing immune response against that one type of cocci. From that point on, the chickens will have a good immunity to normal threat levels of that one species of cocci. They will not be able to resist huge threat levels from a strong dose of cocci, nor will they be able to withstand other species. Just the one to which they were exposed and thereafter developed an immunity.

"Coccidiocide" strength amprolium is the strength you see in a product like Corid medication. Its design is that when you have illness or a serious infestation with cocci, then you use it to kill off all the cocci you can. It's not designed to set up an immune response, but just kill cocci. Amprolium is not an antibiotic - it will have no effect on bacteria. But other coccidiocides might also be an antibiotic as well. One such case is the sulfa family of drugs (Sulmet, Albon, etc). They act as coccidiocides as well as having an antibiotic action.

So what does this mean to your flock? It means that babies being fed a medicated (amprolium) feed are meant to be exposed (as they will be) to some cocci, get over them, and thereafter not be effected by normal cocci levels.

It means if their bedding gets wet (and brooders are warm) that they can and often will develop coccidiosis anyway because the "oocysts" (the form of cocci that is in the ground and bedding) is triggered by certain environmental conditions to 'bloom' and become more infective.

There are three other methods of helping reduce incidences of coccidiosis in your young and adult flocks, however. Vaccinations, probiotics, and environmental control.

Chicks at the hatchery can be given a vaccination that helps to prevent coccidiosis. What it does is exposes the babies (via the vaccine) to the three most common cocci. The babies' bodies react to the 'intruder' and set up an immune response to fight it. The babies rarely show any sign of coccidiosis, develop and immunity, and are more resistant (not completely resistant) to coccidiosis. It's very helpful and is being used often now to help alleviate the problem with cocci.

The second manner is by the regular use of probiotics (live beneficial bacteria in a medium that can be fed) in chicks under 5 months of age. The digestive tract of the chicken (and birds) is lined with beneficial bacteria. In fact, the beneficial bacteria of the gut actually are the workers that digest the food and make it absorbable for your bird. They literally feed your bird. Not only do they feed your bird, but they also help strengthen the health of the gut through a few methods. First, they literally keep bad bacteria, fungi, and even other pathogens like cocci at a more managable and safe level in the gut by literal competition for space. As long as the gut is filled with beneficial bacteria, the other pathogens have to work harder to take over. Good bacteria excrete some enzymes that have been said to be active against coliform bacteria (fecal bad bacteria) like E. coli. They keep fungi from becoming the harmful multi-cellular form. And they help keep cocci from becoming a huge issue.

Organic feeds are actually made with these living bacteria built in. Unfortunately, the bacteria are sensitive and don't live well through storage so if you feed organic feed, supplement the feed with more probiotics.

Regular feeds don't take probiotics into consideration, but the poultry owner should. Starting some form of probiotic at day 3 of the bird's life and weekly thereafter for the next 4 months will make the bird a lot more resistant to illness of the digestive tract and keep their stools more firm and normal.

Probiotics can include plain unflavored yogurt in moderation, acidophilis capsules from the pharmacy/grocery vitamin section, or a good prepared livestock probiotic such as Probios dispersible powder.

The live bacteria in those products will actually 'colonize' the gut - taking hold and growing there with the other beneficial bacteria of the bird's gut. Helping to boost the numbers of good bacteria will help the birds be more resistant to coccidiosis.

However, coccidiosis can still overcome our attempts at keeping it at bay if we don't have the correct environmental conditions and control.

With babies especially (who tend to live in smaller areas with more heat) it is important to keep the environment dry, clean of poop, and ventilated. Water spilling into brooders, or poop in the waterers, are two ways of really encouraging coccidiosis in babies. Those are environmental triggers that make cocci more infective.

Basically, control the environment, boost the natural army of good bacteria, feed a food that helps encourage immunity while still keeping control of cocci, and you will have very few if any problems with coccidiosis in your babies or your adults!

I myself use my recommendations above and have for over 10 years. Previous to that, I didn't use all the recommendations and I would see coccidiosis in birds under 5 months. (Other birds were all free ranged on nice sunny ground with lots of space.) I can say that in the last 10 years I have only seen coccidiosis in birds that were purchased from feedstores and then only for one day. I haven't had to treat with any Sulmet or Corid in this entire time. If I see any diarrhea, I give probiotics daily for 3 days and by the second day it's usually gone. I feed medicated starter although by this point with the other controls I'm sure I could get away without doing so. It's really nice to not have to worry about it anymore. Hopefully this information will help you not have to worry as well.