How Long For Medicated feed

[meowteri2]

I bought purina start and grow medicated feed. Does anyone here feed this to the chicks for the full 16 to 18 weeks.
The guy at the feed store said it only comes medicated. He was not right. I had some medicated feed that I was going
to give to the chicks for about 5 weeks. Then switch to flock raiser so if I had some left over I could mix it with layena
and give it to m 3 hens to git rid if it. I'm kinda mad about the guy lying to me.

 

[smchickfarm]

I always start out with medicated. However I have never fed it to them the full 17-18 weeks like they say you should.

Now, with that being said, I am struggling with if i should this time or not. Because, I hatched some bantam faverolles for my son to show at 4H, and I am thinking I SHOULD keep them on the medicated the full 17-18 weeks.

Any thoughts?

 

[meowteri2]

I called purina and they said it was ok to keep them on it the 18weeks. I just didn't want any of that stuff in them at egg time.
Purina says that it will not harm humans , and it does not get in the egg. Why should I not believe them if I believe what the FDA says lol.
So I will use it up on them. Wonder if those 2 little chicks will finish the 50lb. bag. I will stop using it at about 18 weeks and then
switch them to layena. Two of my 1 year olds started lating at 16 weeks and the other at 18. Thats if the feed store guy didn't lie about there age.

 

[schellie69]

I only keep mine on it until about 10 weeks or so then switch to flock raiser.

 

[Erica]

Here's my take -- and I think it boils down to personal belief. The more you use medicated feeds the more you breed medication-resistant organisms. I'm not sure if this is the case with amprolium, but it seems to be true of most ionophores (coccidiostats). 18 weeks is a long time on medication.

The trick with cocci is to balance the challenge against the bird's immunity. As they get older and have more exposure they grow immune. If you expect this immunity earlier you have to ensure that they've had slow exposure to the organism well prior to the withdrawal of medication. Most birds by 18 weeks are immune, which is why medications are withdrawn at that age. Depending on stocking rate though, most people could wean birds well before that. The meds are largely in the feed up to laying age to make things convenient for feed producers and large scale chicken growers (3 stages of feeding rather than 4).

Staged slow exposure, that's what the vaccinators do, and it's what I try to do. My latest chicks (aged 10 weeks) have been raised almost without medications, on ground where other chickens have been. However after some warm rain the day before yesterday a couple looked a bit droopy (after a change to a new pen in a wetter part of the yard) so I put two of them on medicated chick starter for a day. Yesterday and today they seem perfectly fine. I later realised there was a goshawk swooping the pen, so it may not have been straight cocci, but I'm keeping my eye on them.

Basically it's a personal choice. My own line is, I'd rather put the effort into husbandry than rely on synthetic chemicals, just in case one day science does one of its many reversals and says, 'Oh, by the way, that chemical we said for decades was safe... isn't!'

Hope this helps.

 

[AlienChick]

I give mine medicated chick starter for the first two weeks... just about as long as the small bag of feed will last.

Thereafter they get unmedicated chick starter till they're old enough for their adult feed.

 

[smchickfarm]

Quote:
Love your take on it, makes perfect sense!

 

[Saltcreek]

Now I'm confused. You all use medicated starter to one extent or another. Yet I read on McMurry Hatchery website in their instructions to NOT feed medicated starter if at all possible. Which is it? I would really be bummed out if I killed my first chicks (Welsummers).

Thanks.

 

[felidaet]

You will get MANY varying opinions on this topic. Even the hatcheries do not agree.

I raised chicks the last two years (taking a couple of years off now). I gave mine Purina medicated start and grow until about 16 or 17 weeks. The first batch I gave it to them until the first egg was layed. I immediately switched them to Layena Pellets as soon as I got the first egg. I did not eat any of the eggs for the first two weeks to allow time for the medicated feed to pass through their system. For the second batch of chicks I switched them to flock raiser at 16 weeks. My reason for this was because I wanted to integrate the two flocks at this time. Each of the flocks were pretty much eating from the feeders they were used to but I did not want to older birds to eat the medicated feed. Therefore I switched just in case one of the older birds decided to eat some feed from the younger birds feeder. After one bag of flock raiser I switched the younger birds to Layena Pellets. They were probably about 18 or 19 weeks at that time.

 

[chickensinwasillaAK]

what you read on McMurray is if you have your chicks vaccinated at the hatchery, don't feed them medicated feed as it nullifies the vacination.
If your chicks didn't get vaccinated at the hatchery, medicated feed is fine.