Help me pick a chick feed from my two choices, please.

[newchickmom]

I don't have a choice at Rural King, they only have medicated start and grow. Also they only sell crumbles and only their own brand.

 

[JudyH]

Well, i bought some in "bulk" when I purchased my chicks... but, it was just from a sack that said "FEED" on the outside. I kinda freaked because they didn't have a bag that had STARTER on it anywhere. The feed store people told me not to worry because it was starter and they thought it was medicated -- wasn't all chick starter medicated? And, this was the only chick starter they had. Well, that told me all I needed to know.... which was they didn't know jack about this "chick starter" they were selling me. So I went to another feed store and found the Purina Start and Grow Medicated. I bought the 25 lb bag and my chicks loved it. Well, I ran out this past Saturday night and the feed store that I got it from was closed on Sunday. So I fed them the "bulk" stuff I had purchased. They didn't like it at all! They wouldn't eat hardly any of it all day Sunday....

So Monday morning first thing, I went back up to the 2nd feed store and bought 3 - 25 lb bags of the Purina Start and Grow Medicated (wanted to get enough to last awhile since it's a 30 minute trip to get there). They gobbled it down! My chicks have done so well on it. They are now almost 4 weeks old.

Someone on the "Raising Baby Chicks" forum had baby chicks dying left and right. She took one to a university for analysis. Found out that she was feeding the wrong feed to the chicks and they had a calcium deficiency as well as severe cocci. She had used "bulk" feed purchased at a feed store -- she was told it was chick starter.

So, the lesson to this is to make sure that when you buy "bulk" starter, that you are getting what you're supposed to be getting. If not, with chicks it can be fatal....

 

[scarter]

You might want to call the hatchery that you get your chickens are from. I know that we ordered from McMurray and they were very specific that since we got ours vaccinated that we could not give them medicated feed. It had to do with one of the two vaccinations and I'm not sure which one.

 

[ChooksChick]

I only have experience from one season of raising chicks, but I raised 7 BR pullets up on medicated starter and at 7 or 8 weeks gave 2 to a neighbor, who switched his to unmedicated. I had beautiful healthy birds and he lost one to cocci, even at that age!

I took the other one back ( he was having trouble integrating it to his 2 red star hens) and she was having cocci signs. She got better in days and has been here and happy since...without anything else to point to for blame, I'm going with medicated for my babies.

I haven't any experience with those two brands, so I can't advise there...I want to say our has amprolinium in it, though.

Good luck!