Can I mix medicated and non-medicated chick starter?

[RoosterJuice]

I'll copy something I wrote a long time ago about medicated feed and Cocci. It may help you plan and explain why I'm going to recommend what I do. Amprolium (if your medicated feed contains Amprolium) does nothing to prevent Cocci until they are exposed to the organism that causes Cocci. It takes a while for the number of those organisms to build up to a point that they cause a problem so your problem was not Cocci. Some chicks are exposed to that organism in the brooder, some not until they hit the ground. Amprolium in those doses doesn't hurt them but unless they have been exposed it does not help.

In your situation I'd feed them some dirt from the run every three or four days to expose them and use a straight medicated feed diet for two to three weeks. That way they get a benefit from the medicated feed and develop immunity they need if Cocci is even in your local environment.


First you need to know what the "medicated" is in the medicated feed. It should be on the label. Usually it is Amprolium, Amprol, some such product, but until you read the label, you really don't know. Most "medicated' feed from major brands for chicks that will be layers uses Amprolium, but there are a few out there mostly for broilers, that use other medicines. I'll assume yours is an Amprolium product, but if it is not, then realize everything I say about it may not apply. And it is possible that the "medicated" is Amprolium AND something else.

Amprolium is not an antibiotic. It does not kill anything. It inhibits the protozoa that cause coccidiosis (often called Cocci on this forum) from multiplying in the chicken's system. It does not prevent the protozoa from multiplying; it just slows that multiplication down. There are several different strains of protozoa that can cause Cocci, some more severe than others. Chickens can develop immunity to a specific strain of the protozoa, but that does not give them immunity to all protozoa that cause Cocci.

It is not a big deal for the chicken’s intestines to contain some of the protozoa that cause Cocci. The problem comes in when the number of those protozoa gets huge. The protozoa can multiply in the chicken’s intestines but also in wet manure. For them to reproduce they need some moisture. Slightly damp isn't an issue, soaking wet is. Different protozoa strains have different strengths, but for almost all cases, if you keep the brooder dry, you will not have a problem.

To develop immunity to a specific strain, that protozoa needs to be in the chicks intestines for two or three weeks. The normal sequence is that a chick has the protozoa. It poops and some of the cysts that develop the protozoa come out in the poop. If the poop is slightly damp, those cysts develop and will then develop in the chick's intestines when the chicks eat that poop. This cycle needs go on for a few weeks so all chicks are exposed and they are exposed long enough to develop immunity. A couple of important points here. You do need to watch them to see if they are getting sick. And the key is to keep the brooder dry yet allow some of the poop to stay damp. Not soaking wet, just barely damp. Wet poop can lead to serious problems.

What sometimes happens is that people keep chicks in a brooder and feed them medicated feed while they are in the brooder. Those chicks are never exposed to the Cocci protozoa that lives in the dirt in their run, so they never develop the immunity to it. Then, they are switched to non-medicated feed and put on the ground where they are for the first time exposed to the protozoa. They do not have immunity, they do not have the protection of the medicated feed, so they get sick. Feeding medicated feed while in the brooder was a complete waste.

I do not feed medicated feed. I keep the brooder dry to not allow the protozoa to breed uncontrollably. The third day that they are in the brooder, I take a scoop of dirt from the run and feed it to them so I can introduce the protozoa and they can develop the immunity they need to the strain they need to develop an immunity to. Since I keep my brooder extremely dry and the water clean the protozoa can't reproduce so every three days I give them more dirt from the run so they get more protozoa and can develop immunity. I don't lose chicks to Cocci when they hit the ground.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with feeding medicated feed to chicks, whether the protozoa are present or not. It will not hurt them. They can still develop the immunity they need. But unless the protozoa are present, it also does no good.

If you get your chicks vaccinated for Cocci, do not feed medicated feed. It can negate the vaccinations.

Hello, thank you for that long explanation! Since it is very cold here and will be until May, I think I might try the medicated feed and when May comes around and they’re 4 weeks old I’ll try to bring them outside for a few hours a day and keep them on the medicated for another 2 weeks while they get acclimated… I’m hoping that’ll work.

 

[RoosterJuice]

Oh, maybe that was it! Let's hope so and hopefully the rest thrive now!

Dang! Another one died last night. I woke up at the coldest point in the morning and the area was still 92, surely that’s not too low for 35 4-day old chicks to huddle under. Very strange. I’m hoping for no more but I don’t know what I can do at this point besides switch to medicated feed. They have a huge area, the temp is right, I give fresh water twice daily, they never run out of food, I change their bottom paper daily… maybe at one point it got too hot but at 4 days old don’t they have the sense to move if they’re too hot? They’re very active and quick so I don’t see how they couldn’t.

 

[Debbie292d]

Dang! Another one died last night. I woke up at the coldest point in the morning and the area was still 92, surely that’s not too low for 35 4-day old chicks to huddle under. Very strange. I’m hoping for no more but I don’t know what I can do at this point besides switch to medicated feed. They have a huge area, the temp is right, I give fresh water twice daily, they never run out of food, I change their bottom paper daily… maybe at one point it got too hot but at 4 days old don’t they have the sense to move if they’re too hot? They’re very active and quick so I don’t see how they couldn’t.

Medicated feed isn't magically going to fix this with them. You can if you want as it won't hurt anything, but if they have coccidiosis, then you'd need Corid. I still don't believe that's the problem though but can't figure out what else would be. It seems you're doing everything right.

Yes, they should move from the heat if they're too warm. Mine lay belly down and splattered all over the place; it looks like a bomb went off. If they get chilled because they went too far out, they wake up, cry, and meander back to the heat.

Perhaps this one just was a FTT (failure to thrive). If something was drastically wrong, you wouldn't lose just one here, one there.

I sure hope that's it. They're getting stronger now.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I would love to do this but where I am it’s below freezing and will be until they’re about 4 weeks old. Is that too late to introduce them? Thank you for the reply!

Probably... and I say that because there isn't some magic cut off with early exposure for it to work or not work. Just the earlier the exposure, the better, it seems. What would probably be best for your scenario right now is:

1) feed either medicated or non-medicated (without mixing) until you are close to moving the chicks outside, or ready to begin exposing them to some outside time, then

2) just before you start letting them out, switch to medicated feed, and stay on that a few weeks. The reason being, they're far more likely to pick up coccidiosis from outside than a clean indoor brooder, so as they first get exposed to the new environment outdoors, that's when they're most at risk for a parasite overload that they can't deal with. So that's when the amprolium will be helpful to counteract that.

OR... just don't switch to medicated at all, but make sure to have Corid on hand and if you start seeing telltale signs of coccidiosis overload (lethargy, bloody poops) dose all the chicks via their water source at that time.