Vaccine for coccidiosis? Pros Cons and Q &A

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snowhorse

snowhorse

Pantry Brook Farm
10 Years
Jun 13, 2009
762
2
129
MA
I recently purchased some chicks for Murray McMurray, who offer a vaccine for coccidiosis. I decided to do it as I was ordering, without foolishy coming to get an opinion here.

Well damage is done and they have been vaccinated for it. Does anyone suggest doing this? Or is good old medicated feed the best way to go about this.

I also may have an order of chicks coming in that will not have the vaccine. I would like to keep them in the same brooder with the chicks I have now......BUUUUT here is the catch. I was told by McMurray that if you feed chicks that have the cocci vaccine medicated feed it will just nullify the vaccine. Okay fine, so I wasted my money on the vaccine if I feed them the medicated feed that I want to feed the new chicks, but other that that do you think it would be harmful to feed them the medicated feed with the vaccine???

What a mess as usual
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I had mine vaccinated for Merak's disease and fed medicated for the first 12-15 weeks. I would feed the medicated to both and next time get Merak's vaccination ONLY. Good luck with your new birds, the will all be fine!
 
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They did get the Mareks Vaccine as well.

The new chicks will not be vaccinated as they are a backyard hatch. Should I vaccinate my self?
 
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Hi Snowhorse:

I got all of my chicks last year (and this year) vaccinated (for both Marek's and Coccidiosis) that came from McMurray. The chicks that have been vaccinated have a weaked/different strain of coccidisiosis living in their intestines. The idea is that this strain will help the chick to develop resistance. It takes a specific number of cycles (I think its at least three but I cant remember right now) of the protozoa forming a cyst, being expelled, re-infected, etc. before resistance is formed. Anyways, if you give your chicks medicated feed, it can 'nullify' or interupt this process before they develop full resistance.

So... if you want to feed them medicated feed it will not hurt them at all. The vaccine will not give them their full resistance to cocci, but the medication will not hurt them (you'll just be out of your money.)

How big of an age difference will there be between the chicks you have now from Mcmurray, and the new chicks you might be getting?

I would recommend that you get the Mareks vaccination for the other batch of new chicks that you may order. oops ... just read they are a backyard hatch. I had all of my chicks vaccinated for Mareks last year also. Since then I had a broody hen hatch 6 babies, all of which are doing well. The vaccine is not a live, full on deadly strain, so its not going to hurt other babies you may mix with them.

Last year I also vaccinated my chicks (with vaccine I ordered myself) with Newcastle/Bronchitis vaccine, and 'almost' vaccinated them for fowl pox (I couldn't bring myself to stick them with the two-pronged needle for fowl pox).
 
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The age difference will be 11 to 12 days with the new chicks.

And when I get the new chicks they will be about a day old, Should I vaccinate for Marek's? I had it active in my area and lost a few birds last year to it.

I have no idea how to do this, but I can't imagine it is too difficult, I work in a medical field and have done injections on my horses, so Its not something that will bother me to do it.
 
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I would say do vaccinate for mareks since you have history. When is your order due? If its not due for a few weeks I would call and tell them not to vaccinate for coccidiosis.
 
The chicks I am getting are a backyard flock, so I would have to vaccinate themselves. They will not be vaccinated when I get them.

They are supposed to hatch on Tuesday.
 
The vaccine for Marek's is totally different from the vaccine for Cocci. Totally unrelated.

The Marek's vaccine is actually turkey Marek's, not chicken. It does not prevent Marek's, it prevents the formation of the lesions that cause the damage. Even with the vaccine the chickens can get chicken Marek's, they just will not be harmed by it. If you have had Marek's in your flock you do not have Marek's in your area, you still have it in your flock. Your chickens will infect any other chickens that they come into contact with. Not every chicken that has Marek's exhibits symptoms, even if they have not had the vaccination. I recommend you vaccinate any chicks you bring into your flock for Marek's.

There are seven different protazoa that can cause Cocci. Protazoa are not a virus. I don't know about the specific vaccine McMurray is using this year, but the one they used last year protected against three of the strains of protazoa, not all seven. If the chicks develop immunity against one strain of protazoa, they do not develop immunity against all seven strains.

The protazoa that causes Cocci lives and multiplies in the chicks intestines. The eggs are expelled with the chicks body wastes, called manure or poop. After a day or two in damp or wet chicken poop they develop so that when the chick eats them, they get reinfected. They need to go through this cycle about two weeks before the chick develops an immunity to that specific strain of Cocci. If one has it, they all have it. They eat each others poop. If you do something to kill off or greatly inhibit this cycle, they do not develop immunity. I imagine but do not know for certain that the vaccination introduces weakened protazoa. Maybe they are easily killed off or don't multiply well enough if you feed medicated feed. The cynic in me says that they are just covering all their bases by saying do not feed medicated feed in the first two weeks, but since they recommend it, I would certainly not do it. That is not my specialty and I am going to say follow their instructiosn. They know more than I do about it.

Most medicated feed does not contain antibiotics. You really need to look at the active ingredients to know what is in there. Odds are it is Amprolium or some such product. (It can be something different so do not assume that it is Amprolium!) Amprolium does not kill the protazoa that causes cocci. It inhibits (does not stop but slows down) their use of a certain vitamin needed for them to reproduce. It allows some of the protazoa to reproduce, but not to reproduce totally out of control. The damage to the chick does not occur from a small amount of protazoa in their intestines. The damage comes when the number of protazoa gets too large. The protazoa numbers get huge when the brooder, coop, or run gets wet and the poop is concentrated. That's why if you keep the brooder pretty clean and dry, cocci is usually (Not always but usually. Certain strains of cocci are very strong.) not a problem. But they need a small amount of their poop, slightly damp not soaking wet, so they can develop the immunity.

This is not as complicated as I probably made it sound. Hopefully this will help you make you decision how to proceed. Good luck!!!
 
Ridgerunner said:
The vaccine for Marek's is totally different from the vaccine for Cocci. Totally unrelated.

The Marek's vaccine is actually turkey Marek's, not chicken. It does not prevent Marek's, it prevents the formation of the lesions that cause the damage. Even with the vaccine the chickens can get chicken Marek's, they just will not be harmed by it. If you have had Marek's in your flock you do not have Marek's in your area, you still have it in your flock. Your chickens will infect any other chickens that they come into contact with. Not every chicken that has Marek's exhibits symptoms, even if they have not had the vaccination. I recommend you vaccinate any chicks you bring into your flock for Marek's.

There are seven different protazoa that can cause Cocci. Protazoa are not a virus. I don't know about the specific vaccine McMurray is using this year, but the one they used last year protected against three of the strains of protazoa, not all seven. If the chicks develop immunity against one strain of protazoa, they do not develop immunity against all seven strains.

The protazoa that causes Cocci lives and multiplies in the chicks intestines. The eggs are expelled with the chicks body wastes, called manure or poop. After a day or two in damp or wet chicken poop they develop so that when the chick eats them, they get reinfected. They need to go through this cycle about two weeks before the chick develops an immunity to that specific strain of Cocci. If one has it, they all have it. They eat each others poop. If you do something to kill off or greatly inhibit this cycle, they do not develop immunity. I imagine but do not know for certain that the vaccination introduces weakened protazoa. Maybe they are easily killed off or don't multiply well enough if you feed medicated feed. The cynic in me says that they are just covering all their bases by saying do not feed medicated feed in the first two weeks, but since they recommend it, I would certainly not do it. That is not my specialty and I am going to say follow their instructiosn. They know more than I do about it.

Most medicated feed does not contain antibiotics. You really need to look at the active ingredients to know what is in there. Odds are it is Amprolium or some such product. (It can be something different so do not assume that it is Amprolium!) Amprolium does not kill the protazoa that causes cocci. It inhibits (does not stop but slows down) their use of a certain vitamin needed for them to reproduce. It allows some of the protazoa to reproduce, but not to reproduce totally out of control. The damage to the chick does not occur from a small amount of protazoa in their intestines. The damage comes when the number of protazoa gets too large. The protazoa numbers get huge when the brooder, coop, or run gets wet and the poop is concentrated. That's why if you keep the brooder pretty clean and dry, cocci is usually (Not always but usually. Certain strains of cocci are very strong.) not a problem. But they need a small amount of their poop, slightly damp not soaking wet, so they can develop the immunity.

This is not as complicated as I probably made it sound. Hopefully this will help you make you decision how to proceed. Good luck!!!
Click to expand...

I know this post was from a really long time ago, but I want to thank you for writing it. This is the most thorough explanation of what’s going on with coccidiosis that I have been able to find. Recently I got some coccidiosis vaccinated baby chicks which I didn’t know were vaccinated, and after one week for the first batch and two weeks for another batch, I started feeding the medicated feed. I did this because I lost two baby chicks out of the second batch, and I suspected coccidiosis. After talking to the feed store, it seems that it was probably something else, because a number of checks were lost out of that particular batch.

Once I knew that I had done something wrong by introducing medicated feed to vaccinated chicks, I was trying to figure out how long it took for the vaccine to kick in and provide some immunity so I can figure out how much damage I had done by rendering the vaccine useless (in other words, is it possible that they had developed immunity prior to me feeding them the medicated feed? And, if I stopped after only one week of the medicated feed, is it possible that maybe I hadn’t completely read her the vaccine useless?).

This doesn’t exactly answer that question, but it gives me a lot more information than I could find anywhere else :) Thank you so much.
 

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