Medicated vs. Unmedicated Feed; Which do you use?

[Erica]

I've been brooding and rearing on the same ground without medications now for 3 years without a problem. At the beginning I was using coccidiostats (in feed) but was curious whether I could change. We have warm wet summers so I'd say my property is a pretty good test case.

Early on I saw a few cases of cocci, e.g. when moving from brooder to tractor (there's no 'clean' ground here; all has had birds on it within 6 months). This would only occur if there was a sudden summer damp period I hadn't foreseen. However in those days I wasn't feeding soured milk, which is a useful preventive.

Graduated exposure has to start from day one, in the baby brooder. I add a handful of adult pen soil to the brooder litter. But I also use soured milk as a base part of the diet, not just an additive. This combination seems to work as long as nothing else is out of balance (no overcrowding for instance).

cheers
erica

 

[centrarchid]

There is I think a strong genetic component to bird's resistance to a given strain of coccicidia. I live in central Missouri but brought my gamefowl with me from southern Indiana. While in southern Indiana we never used medicated feed of any sort for those games and losses to coccocidia infections where not evident. We occasionally kept games from other breeders on same ground and coccicidia hammered those broods unless chicks were raised off ground and reared after spring rains largely passed. In present location the same gamefowl that did not require treatment in southern Indiana need treatment for coccidia when released into tractors on wet ground. My American dominiques brooder reared with some of same gamefowl do not require medicated feed where I presently live.

 

[Chris09]

To me when a chick has coccidia there getting the life sucked right out of them just like with worms. I will breed for disease resistance but parasites are a whole different world.


Chris

 

[centrarchid]

To me when a chick has coccidia there getting the life sucked right out of them just like with worms. I will breed for disease resistance but parasites are a whole different world.


Chris

You can breed for resistance to parasites. Resistance may not always come from outright immunilogical responses, but also from changes in physiology and behavior. Biggest hurdle, which is pretty big, is having the needed genetic variation to work from. I suspect my American dominiques vary as a function of source in respect to how strongly they are affected by large round worms. Strain from North Carolina actually dies from the worms while my Missouri strains seem unaffected even when carrying a detectable burden. A co-worker is working on developing worm resistance in goats and a couple breeds are clearly more resistant, either because they do not become infected or can carry load better. Resistance is very much a function of history with a given parasite. It takes selection under pressure of parasite to develope resistance in a population.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

There is some truth to this. I knew a fellow two counties to the north of me that had a nice looking flock of goats that he never wormed. Said he had bred for resistance and eventually achieved it. He did this by starting with a LARGE flock of goats and accepting heavy losses until he was down to just the survivors several years later. Those became the nucleus of his new flock.

He lost a lot of goats along the way to his goal though.

 

[Chris09]

There is some truth to this. I knew a fellow two counties to the north of me that had a nice looking flock of goats that he never wormed. Said he had bred for resistance and eventually achieved it. He did this by starting with a LARGE flock of goats and accepting heavy losses until he was down to just the survivors several years later. Those became the nucleus of his new flock.
He lost a lot of goats along the way to his goal though.

There has been a few universities that have been working on this but from what I have heard there feed intake went up as the parasite load did and milk production was down which I already knew this because we also raise dairy goats for both show and milk and I can tell when they have parasite in them. I'v seen where worm and or coccidia will knock milk production down, feed intake will go up and overall appearance of the goat is poor.

The kiko was said to have some resistance to worm but they also said that it might be the fields that the test goats were on. The goats were on a pasture that was high in Crab Grass and a type of Clover which are said to be a mild wormers.

I know at one time they said that worms was the number one killer of domestic goats.


Chris

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I could not tell you about their feed consumption as that was not what I was there for. There will be trade-offs I am quite sure. They were just scrub goats, but they appeared fat and happy to me.

Here in Florida we've always had "cracker cattle", "Gulf Coast sheep", "cracker horses" and so on. All just feral animals living wild going all the way back to the original Spanish colonization (especially pigs!). Who knows how many of them died off from their original numbers, but some survived and it was from those animals that the future populations grew.

I think a big part of that story is that they were free roaming. Not confined to a relatively small area as small livestock generally are today. Parasite loads did not grow high simply because the animals were never in one location very long before they moved on. One reason I like tractoring as I do. They don't generally cross the same piece of ground more than once a month and if I had the space it would be even less.

 

[centrarchid]

There has been a few universities that have been working on this but from what I have heard there feed intake went up as the parasite load did and milk production was down which I already knew this because we also raise dairy goats for both show and milk and I can tell when they have parasite in them. I'v seen where worm and or coccidia will knock milk production down, feed intake will go up and overall appearance of the goat is poor.

The kiko was said to have some resistance to worm but they also said that it might be the fields that the test goats were on. The goats were on a pasture that was high in Crab Grass and a type of Clover which are said to be a mild wormers.

I know at one time they said that worms was the number one killer of domestic goats.


Chris

Kikos are part of co-worker's (at Lincoln University) base in effort to develop worm resistant goats. Worms still number one killer. They are also exploring use of forages like chickory and I think tannic acids as an additive as de-wormers. The de-wormers as far as I know have not provided contgrol.

They have also been looking for an and finding herds that have been bred for parasite resistance. Problem to my untrained I is those strains were developed at expense of some production qualities. Goal of project is to improve both worm resistance and productivity in part through crosses and selection. This will be a longer term project than I think they realize.

Something must be done differently since worms are becoming resistant to de-wormers currently on market.

 

[centrarchid]

I could not tell you about their feed consumption as that was not what I was there for. There will be trade-offs I am quite sure. They were just scrub goats, but they appeared fat and happy to me.
Here in Florida we've always had "cracker cattle", "Gulf Coast sheep", "cracker horses" and so on. All just feral animals living wild going all the way back to the original Spanish colonization (especially pigs!). Who knows how many of them died off from their original numbers, but some survived and it was from those animals that the future populations grew.
I think a big part of that story is that they were free roaming. Not confined to a relatively small area as small livestock generally are today. Parasite loads did not grow high simply because the animals were never in one location very long before they moved on. One reason I like tractoring as I do. They don't generally cross the same piece of ground more than once a month and if I had the space it would be even less.

Land races and rotation. Many of us not using locally adapted strains and we are prone to over-graze and otherwise manage to benefit of parasites lifecycle.

 

[Chris09]

Well the other thing we have to look at is what are there eating habits like in the wild?
Look at the domestic goat, they mostly graze on pasture with lots of vegetation close to the ground where the "wild" goats can forage more on trees and shrubs. The wild goats are less likely to pick up parasites.

Now the same can be said with chickens, if your pasture/runs are mostly dry dirt with a few shrubs and "off the ground plants" then your birds are going to be less likely to get parasites than birds that are on a pasture/run that is damp with lost of vegetation that grows on or near the ground.


Chris