Feeding Medicated Chick Food To Adult Ducks?!?!

chickenwhisperer123

Whispers Loudly
10 Years
Mar 7, 2009
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Lincoln, Nebraska
I was wondering if my ducks could have medicated chick food...

One hasnt eaten all day, and I would like to get some food in it if at all possible.

Im out of normal food, and this is all I have!!

Any ideas?

Will it hurt them?!

I NEED HELP!!
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It will hurt them and goslings, please do not feed medicated chix feed to ducklings or goslings, I can't remember offhand about adult ducks and geese but I do know you are not to feed the young ones the medicated...hope this isn't too late! You could feed oats until you get non-medicated and/or duck/goose feed...
 
Do not feed medicated chick feed to ducklings, ducks, goslings or geese. They eat more feed per pound than chickens and can overdose themselves on the feed's medication.
 
Okay, to satisfy my own curiosity, I googled. I found lots of answers, both yes and no. Naturally, I gave more credence to the more clinical sources.

Here is one link:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/y4359e/y4359e0g.htm

And in case you don't feel like slogging through the entire article, here's the pertinent info:

Treatment. Various sulphonamide drugs and coccidiostats have been used in the treatment of renal and intestinal coccidiosis of geese. If the geese are to be fed rations which were formulated for other types of poultry, it should be noted that in spite of popular belief to the contrary, waterfowl can be fed rations containing most of the coccidiostats used for chickens. The Veterinary University of Hanover, Germany have specifically reported that the following coccidiostats found in chicken rations are tolerated by waterfowl: amprolium, amprolium-ethopabate, clopidol, clopidol-methylbenzoquate, DOT (zoalene), lasalocid monensin-sodium, narasin, nicarbazin, robenidin, salinomycin and sulfaquinoxaline. They also reported that neither halofuginone nor arprinocid are tolerated by waterfowl and that they could find no information on the effect of giving waterfowl feed containing either decoquinate or maduramicin ammonium.

And another link:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6878147

I found these and many more. And then I also found links that say the exact opposite. So, how does a person decide?

Personally, I brood all of my chicks outside, with broody hens, and I've never had a problem with cocci. I only use medicated feed when the feedstore is out of the unmedicated.

But I have a clutch of duck eggs that is due to hatch next week (My first ducklings ever), so the issue has special significance to me. Clearly I don't want to damage my duckie-babies in any way.

Not sure what to believe!
 
Wow. I don't know then. I was always told by duck rehab people to feed UNmedicated chick feed or they would overdose on the meds. I think I read the same thing in Holderead's book on raising ducks. Sorry if I gave out wrong info.
 
If it's just amprollium, you can feed it to ducks. The reason it's considered a no-no is because ducks eat so much more than chicks. If it's for a short period of time, I can't see the harm in it. Mine are chowing on some right now.

This was posted by kinnip in one of my threads. (the thread was SUPER DUPER MUSCOVY TREAT DAY!!!)

Just adding to the curiousity...
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