Preventative Treatments - Cocci Vaccine vs Amprolium

[Forestfarm]

The environment makes such a big difference.
I've had so many batches of chicks the last few years that I took the opportunity to experiment. Late last year I became convinced that our well water was a source of cocci.
Given only bottled water, our chicks stayed healthy without amprolium. On well water, sometimes the prevention dose of amprolium wasn't enough.

How could this be? Some possibilities included:
* We happened to have ponds nearby. Although an ideal aquifier would be isolated from a surface level body of water, who can really say if that's the case, or if it stays the case as ground conditions change over time?
* A well could be more shallow than it's supposed to be, or have an infringing drain field or be contaminated by flooding. There's a right way for builders to take precautions, but things happen, people fib, etc.


At our new place on city water, and considering the winter season, I didn't give anything to our December chicks and they did just fine. That simply wasn't possible at the old place. It remains to be seen if spring and summer chicks do as well, but if they do I'm going to be completely convinced it was the well water. Since we are in the same city climate is the same, the flock is the same so the strain of cocci came along, and my sanitation practices remain the same.


But please note: There is a daily prevention dose and a treatment dose of corid. Prevention can be given continually until they've been on the ground 2-3 weeks. A treatment dose should only be given when they show symptoms and for a short duration, as it's a B1 (Thiamine) antagonist - it reduces the level of the vitamin which cocci needs to reproduce.
Because of this singular drawback to using amprolium, some people take a variety of approaches on dosing schedules in the hopes of giving them protection during the most risky times and "vacations" during less risk to balance out their vitamin levels.

Interesting with the well water! Thanks for your insight!

How do you distinguish between the risky and less risky periods of their lives? I know a lot can go wrong in first and last couple weeks - are there other periods during the grow-out or do you mean the times when they are not on Corid?

Regarding vitamins, do people here like using a liquid vitamin / amino acid supplement like Rooster Booster poultry cell? Would it be administered when the birds go off Corid or during? I feel like I'm hijacking my own thread but it's all related

 

[Ridgerunner]

The most risky time is after they have been exposed to the organism that causes the problems. That may be in the brooder or right after they leave the brooder and hit the ground. If the brooder or their environment is dry this is seldom a problem, but CX poop so much that it can be hard to really keep it dry.

The active ingredient in Corid is a thiamine blocker. As long as the vitamins or other ingredients don't affect thiamine it doesn't matter if they overlap Corid or medicated feed.

 

[SourRoses]

How do you distinguish between the risky and less risky periods of their lives?

A lot depends on your environment, sorry to sound like a broken record, lol. People that have a lot of problems with coccidiosis tend to use prevention doses for a longer period of time, but most people can use it for a shorter duration.

When we were struggling with batch after batch of chicks, I found there were two main time periods that were risky where we were. Starting around day 5 and going to two weeks old. And then when I moved them to the coop, whatever age that might be (we had a large setup on our porch with a baby run, so they often didn't go out until a month or even older). Most people don't brood like that, and with birds going out a lot earlier or even starting outside, an initial prevention dose for 2-3 weeks may be sufficient. You have to adjust based on what you're seeing.
I personally found that difficult... changing an approach to be more aggressive, especially in time to save all the chicks. With coccidiosis, depending on the strain, the symptoms can be different. Ours never showed signs of bloody poop, they were fine one day and the next they were fluffed up, cold, sitting alone, with drooping wings and not eating. Doing drench dosing was the only way we saved many of those, but I lost more than a few over the years and it always seemed to be the ones you most want to use for breeding! I tried to develop a farmer mentality that if they weren't as tough as the others perhaps it worked out alright in the end, but it's hard when you love them! And since most people can prevent the worst of coccidiosis with sanitation, it was hard for this OCD germaphobe to wrap my head around how I somehow wasn't doing enough.


On vitamins, you can give them when they're not on corid. If the vitamin mix contains Thiamine - B1, you don't want to give it during the prevention or treatment dosing. Corid (Amprolium) works by reducing Thiamine, so adding more can cancel out the effectiveness of the Corid. But it certainly can be good for the birds body to receive extra during off times. A strong enough deficiency can cause leg & neurological problems.