I have several young cockerels that are 12-15 weeks old and I am going to send them to freezer camp. (yes I have tried to give them away) How long after stopping the medicated grower food and placing them on flock grower should I wait before processing them?
They would probably be fine, unless you want to wait until the antibiotics are out of their system - almost a month I think, but your roos are already at prime freezer age and may be hard to butcher if you wait too much longer... I can tell you from firsthand experience that their last meal should be 24hrs before the day of reckoning. This gives you an empty digestive system so accidental perforation of the intestines is less messy, and a far smaller crop to avoid (of 4 roos we successfully accidentally lanced 3 crops).
About 2 weeks should be enough time for the antibiotics to be out of their systems. The medicated chick food is not really considered an antibiotic, but right now I don't remember exactly what it is. I do know that it isn't considered harmful to humans.
Coccidiostats are normally in chick starter/grower feed to help build resistance to cocci infection. If chick(s) are overwhelmed with cocci, corid is normally used to treat them. There is no withdrawal with corid... in which if slaughtered, the meat is good to eat. Some chick starter feeds also have minute quantities of antibiotics in them. You'd have to check the label and see what antibiotic is/are in the feed, then look it up and see if there's a withdrawal period. Here's a link: http://msucares.com/poultry/feeds/poultry_medications.html
