MEDICATED WHAT THE HECK!!! is it GOOD or BAD

[Achickenwrangler#1]

What are you medicating them for???,

 

[ChicKat]

What are you medicating them for???,

The "medication" in chick starter is usually Amporolim which is a coccidiostat (meaning it kills the coccidia protozoa)............

Young chicks are susceptible, older chickens have developed resistance. That is one of the reasons that an early poster explained that both vaccination for coccidiosis to kill the coccidia protozoa in the chickens gut and feeding "medicated" feed, will cancel each other out...so with chicks choose one or the other approach if you wish to protect your chicks using meds.

For the first 4-weeks of a chicks life medicated feed will protect them. Medicated feed after the 8th week will actually prevent them from developing their own immunity, so I have read. I feed my chicks on medicated to prevent the protozoa when they are just babies....

 

[josebeth1]

I, too, feed medicated while they are in the brooder, but once they go out into the world I can no longer do that. I wish I could, though. In our world as alpaca breeders coccidia is a big subject in our lives and just as ChicKat stated above, we also walk the tightrope with our little ones between wanting them to develop resistance and not letting the coccidia take over. I'm posting this as it recently occurred to me that there may be alpaca folks out there who are not familiar with the subject of medicated chick feed and alpacas.

The big and important point of this is: medicated chick feed is highly, highly toxic to alpacas!! I believe it was about 10 years ago now when a major feed company accidentally ran alpaca feed through the same funnel machine that had just run the medicated chick feed and had not been cleaned between the two types of feed. Just the residue from the medicated chick feed getting onto the alpaca feed was enough to kill a huge number of alpacas here, primarily in NE Ohio. The resulting lawsuit and battling over this tragedy went on for years, ultimately creating a huge rift between many alpaca folks in our area, thereby adding more sadness and anger to an already tragic situation.

Anyway, this is just my "heads up" contribution while we're on the subject of medicated feed..............

 

[dainerra]

I've heard good and bad. I know that my vet does NOT recommend feeding the medicated feed unless you have a known problem. It isn't the same as a vaccine, which will build up a natural immunity. Instead, it is an antibiotic. Do you take antibiotics before you get sick? No. Why? Because 1 it isn't going to protect you from getting sick and 2 that is how antibiotic resistant bacteria are created (over use of meds).

If you have a known contaminated area keep the birds away - that includes hand washing before handling baby chicks and not wearing shoes you wore in that area in any other area of the property. a known infection, yes medicated feed all the way.

 

[ButchGood]

I always use medicated starter. Then they go to unmedicated/natural feed at 6 weeks old. I have never had a chick or chicken die from illness. I'll keep doing that.

 

[ChicKat]

I agree with ButchGood on this one.... I think that coccidia is a bit different from the other things that people are risking developing resistance to due to unneeded meds. JMO, and your insight about using needless meds is a good one, but I don't want to risk a chick.

 

[galanie]

The Amporolim in the food is not an "antibiotic" that we would take for ourselves. In addition, it does not just up and kill all the cocci germs in the chicken. It restricts uptake of a nutrient so that many but not all of the organisms die. It simply helps control the numbers of this protozoa so that the chick can develop it's own immunity to it while protecting it's system from getting so much that it gets sick. We think of "antibiotics" in medicated food and that's not exactly what the stuff is.

Commercial chicken houses do indeed pump their chickens full of real antibiotics to head off illness, which we agree is not a good practice in general. But the "medication" in medicated food isn't the stuff we normally think of as an antibiotic. It doesn't just out and out kill all the cocci germs, just helps keep the numbers down.

That said, everyone has to make their own decisions. Some use it, some won't.

 

[cherrysPolishchicks]

Its nothing new been around for years.I use it a lot on new chicks then get them off at abour 5 weeks if I can find un-medicated ..Which is getting harder to find.Been no problem....cva34

 

[Tyranno-Chicken Rex]

I always feed medicated the first 3-4 months. Then I switch to layer.

Medicated feed helps build an immunity to coccidiosis, which is everywhere in damp areas, even in the brooder if it gets wet by the waterer. I personally would not go without it since coccidiosis can easily kill an entire flock.

I personally think its a must have. I buy all my feed by 50# bags. Even with as little as 3 chicks.

I concur, that’s what I did for my flock when they were chicks.

 

[nuthatched]

This read has been inactive since 2012, you're likely not to receive a response from the op.