Medicated chick feed

[A.T. Hagan]

There are no guarantees about much of anything in life.

Nevertheless if you keep your brooder bedding dry, relatively clean, and the water clean and fresh along with a medicated chick starter you have a very good chance of your chicks never contracting coccidiosis. Now once you put them on the dirt outside things may change depending on whether your ground is "fowl sick" or not. Some areas have such a high level of fowl specific coccidiosis in the soil that your birds will be at risk no matter what you do. Better to avoid those areas if you can. I do not run my grow-out pens in the same areas as my layer and breeder tractors for that very reason.

Your mother hen can eat medicated chick starter right along with her chicks. It won't hurt her at all. I've known people that fed medicated chick starter to their birds their entire lives and they thrived. It's not what I would do myself, but I've seen it done.

Keep your brooder DRY, relatively clean, the water clean and fresh, and feed a medicated chick starter and you'll have done as much as you can.

 

[cmom]

I personally use the medicated starter/grower. The medicated is sulfa based. It inhibits the growth of cocci so the cocci can't reproduce. Amprolium, is the medication in feed . Only a problem if you have allergies to sulfa or are super sensitive to sulfa drugs and you eat the eggs layed by a hen who has been eating the medicated feed. Most broodys don't lay for awhile after they have hatched eggs so it shouldn't be a problem feeding the medicated feed.

 

[amillecay]

Best thing to do is put dirt from your property into their brooder, like in a shallow pan, and make them a little dustbath so they are exposed early on, from the first week of life. That's what would happen if they were roaming with a broody mama hen-babies raised by broodies rarely, if ever, get cocci, for some reason.

Then you watch for symptoms of coccidiosis and seek out a source of Corid 9.6% solution, just in case. Fluffed up, lethargic chicks and bloody poop are signs of coccidiosis. Even chicks raised on medicated feed in a brooder, with no exposure to dirt, when suddenly plopped outside at 4-6 weeks old, can be overwhelmed by the oocysts in the soil that cause cocci.

What many don't know is that chicks can hatch with oocysts in their gut already, then when they hit soil, if they haven't been exposed to it in the brooder already, they can get coccidiosis within a week or two.

And, by the way, cleanliness in the brooder is NO guarantee against cocci, in spite of what others may say! It should be kept dry and the water free of poop, certainly, but it's not a guarantee they won't get cocci even if you are the Martha Stewart of Brooder Cleaners.

Thank you very much it's all making since now! So the mama will be raising them and i am having her hatch them while shes in a big dog crate i have in the coop (of which I have a nesting box in of course). I would like to know what you would do because i am still undecided, since they will be with mama, medicated or not?

 

[speckledhen]

I have no choice but to give mine amprolium medicated feed so broody hens eat that along with the chicks.

By the way, amprolium is NOT a sulfa drug. Sulmet is a sulfa drug for treating cocci, but not the preferred one since it ravages the intestines further and does not treat all forms of cocci. Corid, which is simply concentrated amprolium, is the preferred treatment, same med in the feed, but at a treatment level; amprolium is a thiamine analog, blocks the B vitamin that oocycts feed off of.

I have clean brooders (much cleaner than some I've seen on BYC, I can tell you), have always been fed medicated feed since I have no choice, and keep the water clean and invariably, if I don't get chicks exposed to the dirt from the first week of life and plop them out on it at 4-6 weeks old, they come down with cocci within two weeks time. It's just a fact of life around here and nothing I can do anything about except expose them to the soil early on, or try to only hatch with broodies.

From this article: http://www.thepoultrysite.com/publications/2/Coccidiosis Management/46/drugs


Regarding drugs used for coccidiosis-it differenciates between amprolium and sulfa.

). The drugs are used for prevention.

• Ionophores: Ionophores are anticoccidials commonly used in the large-scale industry. They alter the function of the cell membrane and rupture the parasite. Ionophores also have antibacterial action and help prevent secondary gut diseases. Ionophores are not synthetic drugs; they are produced by fermentation and include monensin (Coban
  
  ) and salinomycin (Salinomax
  
  ). However, some ionophores are now completely ineffective against coccidia because of resistance the coccidia have developed. They are used for prevention.

• Other drugs: There are many other anticoccidial drugs in various chemical classes with various modes of action. Examples are Cycarb
  
  (nicarbizine) and Cycostat
  
  (Robenidine Hydrochloride).

 

[amillecay]

Okay this is a really good answer once again thanyou very much I went ahead and got the medicated today since this is the last weekend I can get it before they hatch.


That was some good info to just know for sure!!

Michaella

 

[cmom]

I stand corrected. An early coccidiostat, or medicine to fight coccidian, named sulfaquinoxaline, a coccidiostat which was used extensively in chickens but has been superseded. (Definition of SULFAQUINOXALINE: a sulfa drug C14H12N4O2S used especially in veterinary medicine) was developed in the 1940s. In the 1950s, another coccidiostat was developed which is still used today: amprolium. This antiprotozoal drug can be put in food, water, or can be injected. Amprolium not only stops the growth of new protozoa, but kills them as well. Amprolium is commonly put in food for broiler (meat) chickens.

 

[speckledhen]

Just wanted folks to understand that most feeds today use Amprolium and that is not sulfa-based. Some do add things like trace amounts of bacitracin or ethopabate (hope I spelled that right), but most of them have strictly amprolium.

Purina and Tucker Milling currently have only amprolium, which is fine for the broody hens as well for the limited time she is caring for chicks. But if I could find it and it wasn't more expensive, I'd use non-medicated and just keep Corid on hand for any outbreaks that occurred. I just have no choice and it's been fine for all these years to use the medicated starter/grower up until laying age.

 

[PDXcluck]

Since someone else mentioned Harvey Ussery's book in this thread, I will chime in with a related point I read in the same book just last night. He gave an overview of a very interesting study touting the benefits of aged deep litter in preventing cocci in chicks. I did a little googling and came up with an article posted on Robert Plamondon's poultry pages discussing the study in question. Here is the pertinent excerpt and a link to the full article:



Quote:
http://www.plamondon.com/faq_deep_litter.html

Very interesting stuff indeed!

 

[Cochaura]

That is very interesting and answers one of the concerns I have about our chicks due to hatch in a couple days. We use the deep litter method and plan to put the hen with chicks into a separate little pen on the ground in the coop. I was worried we'd be exposing the little chicks to too much at first, but it makes sense that exposing them to things right away rather than keeping them in a more sterile environment would be better for them in the long run. I am still not sure what to do about the medicated feed. Our broody hen was vaccinated before sent to us from the hatchery, so I don't want to cause her any harm by feeding her medicated feed. It sounds like that shouldn't be too much of an issue though.

 

[cmom]

My broody along with her chicks eats the medicated feed with no problems.