medicated chick food or all organic?

[Lazy Farmer]

If the medication in your starter is Amprolium, it is safe to eat the eggs if your hens do eat the starter. Amprolium is a thiamine blocker.

All that being said, I never use medicated feed, and I have never had coccidiosis in any of my chicks. The feed store statement about "protecting your chicks" is nothing more than fear mongering from an uninformed employee. When I started my first flock "this time around" (I've had poultry off and on for the past 50 years) I told the employee that I wanted unmedicated chick feed. The reply: "You can't do that. Chicks must have medicated feed." My response: "I'll take my chances, please give me unmedicated chick starter." Miffed store employee: "If you use unmedicated feed, they will die. Besides, we don't have any." Me: "Thank you, I'll be doing business with your competitor." Next year, lo and behold, that store was now stocking unmedicated chick starter. Amazingly, they were now selling the very thing that is presumably the cause of death of chicks everywhere!

I choose to go the natural route regarding building immunity for a strong flock. But, I do not use organic feed. I give my chicks a plug of sod from untreated lawn starting the first week after hatch. I ferment feed for all of my birds. And I use deep litter in coop and run. All of these measures work together to load the bird's gut with beneficial bacteria and fungi to boost digestion and immunity.

 

[igorsMistress]

I didn't use medicated feed. I took my chicks outside, gave them a dust bath with dirt from my yard and a piece of sod with dirt on the bottom. The feed store guy told me I should buy medicated, it's a risk etc but I felt it would be better not to use it. We feed non gmo food made with organic ingredients, but that had nothing to do with medicating or not, it's just a personal preference.

 

[snow5164]

The so called medicine in medicated chick feed is designed to be eaten by the single celled parasites that cause coccidiosis. The "medicine" in medicated chick feed is mistakenly eaten by the coccidiosis organism and this causes the organism to basically starve and that allows the young chick to develop a personal resistance to coccidiosis.

Thank you so much for explaining some will never be convinced but I’ll do everything I can to raise healthy birds

 

[centrarchid]

Much of the time I can get away with chick feed that is not medicated. Here coccidia strains are abundant and when conditions are right, such as ground very wet and lot of adult chickens present, outbreaks can be an issue. This is especially the case when chicks are held in confinement. When the I keep a group of chicks in confinement a medicated chick starter is often used, especially when the chicks show signs of stress. If conditions are dry often no medicated feed is used. Deciding not to use mediation based purely on what someone from a very different location than you is a major deviation from smart.

Interactions between chicken strains and cocci strains are also important and easy to demonstrate. If you get to the point where an outbreak is underway, then more aggressive treatment with laced water is more often needed to prevent losses.

 

[Folly's place]

There's no right or wrong answer that fits every situation, as centrarchid says.
Some places never seem to have issues with coccidia, while another farm up the road might have annual chick deaths without amprolium in the feed. It just depends!!!
It's safest to use the amprolium medicated feed for their first eight or ten weeks, so their resistance to illness from coccidia can develop.
Many of us haven't had problems in our flock from coccidia, and it's wonderful, and we can avoid feeding medicated chick feeds. As a first time owner, you need to decide how risk adverse you are, and if having dead and dying chicks would be a problem for you, if you are one of the unlucky ones.
I fed medicated chick starter for several years, until I figured out that my broody raised chicks, who didn't get that feed, also did fine. Since then I feed everyone Flock Raiser, an all-flock feed that works for all the birds, and is unmedicated.
Mary