Medicated starter and ducks - again

[kyexotics]

For the first time I saw threads saying medicated starter is bad for ducks...

I've hatched and raised over 500 ducklings in recent years and have always used medicated and have yet to have an issue related to it...

How is it bad, that I couldn't find, only people saying don't feed it to them...Thoughts? Facts?

 

[Amiga]

Going back, my understanding is that there once was a type of medication that was bad for ducklings in chick starter.

From what I have read, that medication is no longer used - amprolium (for coccidiosis) is the medication in chick starter now.

Amprolium is said by many to be safe for ducklings.

Some folks just don't like giving unnecessary medication to ducklings.

Also from what I understand, amprolium is a thiamine uptake inhibitor.* For that reason I myself am not keen on using medicated chick starter as it inhibits uptake of a B vitamin (thiamine - B1). B vitamins are important to proper neurological development, and a number of ducklings on chick starter (medicated and non-medicated) have B vitamin deficiencies, so why make it worse?

*http://www.selleckchem.com/products/amprolium-hcl.html

 

[kyexotics]

Thank you for into, I'll look into it...