vaccine baby chicks

[harrellkd]

HELP! I have 16 chicks approx 2 weeks. Mixed breeds. Came from tractor supply. I have no idea if they've been vaccinated. I assume not. I've been feeding them southern states brand chick starter/grower medicated. They also have sav-a-chick probiotics and electrolytes. This is my first time with babies. What else should I be doing for them? They are all healthy and growing like weeds.....

 

[Allie3513]

I used medicated chick starter feed for my chicks for the first 6 weeks. Is that enough for vaccinations? Or is there more I should do?

 

[Folly's place]

Medicated chick starter should have amprolium, which helps with coccidia. It's a very good idea to feed it for about six weeks, and then transition to grower feed, after they've been outside on your ground, where there might be coccidia. Marek's vaccine is best given to day-old chicks, and then they must be isolated for about two weeks to develop immunity. Show and commercial birds get many more vaccines, nearly never given to backyard flocks. Don't worry about the other vaccines when you are just starting! Electrolytes and vitamin suppliments are short term fixes for sick birds, or after shipping stress, and not meant to continue. If you read the ingredients on the electrolytes, the prime ingredient is salt! Just don't bother with it. Mary

 

[lazy gardener]

I'm posting a comment I put on the "He said, she said" thread, b/c I thought it was pertinent to your question.

I don't vaccinate, don't intend to. From the Mareks research I've done: Vaccine only masks the disease in that the lethal tumors don't show up. Vaccinated poultry can catch it, can spread it. So, you may have vaccinated your first flock, and continued with a closed flock, only to still end up with it infecting your flock (chicks you've hatched yourself), and you may never know that the disease came from one of your vaccinated birds. Also, it is most likely to show up in over crowded conditions and in immune compromised birds. Well tended poultry with healthy immune systems are not likely to become ill with it. (I'm not saying they WONT, but I'm saying it's less likely to have it show up in a home flock. The commercial folks vaccinate b/c their flocks are over crowded, stressed, living in filth, and immune compromised. Furthermore, turkeys carry a strain of Mareks, which is less lethal to chickens. So, if you have a population of turkeys around your flock (I have tons of wild turkeys), your chickies are most likely to pick up that strain, which will afford them immunity to the more lethal strains. (Similar to the milk maids of the past being immune to small pox b/c they'd been infected with cow pox.) As far as other diseases, I have similar opinion: it's a shot in the dark. Money spent for a disease that may never be encountered, and if your flock is healthy, they will most likely not get sick.

How to build flock immunity? I'm a fan of getting chicks exposed to native soils while their "peri-hatch" immunity is highest. (within the first 2 weeks) I give them a plug of sod: toss it right into the shavings in the brooder (upside down). I also put them on fermented feed. If you don't want to do FF, then you can do natural ACV with the mother, plus the sod, and add some packaged probiotics.
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Additionally, once you've received your chicks, the vaccination options are much more difficult and expensive. The time to make that decision is when ordering your chicks.

Regarding medicated feed: It contains Amprolium, which is a Thiamine blocker. This prevents thiamine uptake by the coccidiosis organism, therefore it can't replicate to get a strong foot hold in your chicks gut. Cocci are present in all soils. They cause disease when chicks are immune compromised, stressed, or otherwise weakened, kept in a damp environment where the cocci thrive. You can have chicks get coccidiosis without ever being exposed to the soil, or you can raise chicks for a whole life time without ever encountering it. I've never had it in any of the chicks I've raised. I've never given them medicated feed, and never intend to b/c I will use the natural approach to boost their immunity. It's an individual decision regarding medicated feed, and neither approach is wrong. What is wrong is if some one tells you that what ever choice you make is wrong.

 

[Allie3513]

I'm posting a comment I put on the "He said, she said" thread, b/c I thought it was pertinent to your question.

I don't vaccinate, don't intend to. From the Mareks research I've done: Vaccine only masks the disease in that the lethal tumors don't show up. Vaccinated poultry can catch it, can spread it. So, you may have vaccinated your first flock, and continued with a closed flock, only to still end up with it infecting your flock (chicks you've hatched yourself), and you may never know that the disease came from one of your vaccinated birds. Also, it is most likely to show up in over crowded conditions and in immune compromised birds. Well tended poultry with healthy immune systems are not likely to become ill with it. (I'm not saying they WONT, but I'm saying it's less likely to have it show up in a home flock. The commercial folks vaccinate b/c their flocks are over crowded, stressed, living in filth, and immune compromised. Furthermore, turkeys carry a strain of Mareks, which is less lethal to chickens. So, if you have a population of turkeys around your flock (I have tons of wild turkeys), your chickies are most likely to pick up that strain, which will afford them immunity to the more lethal strains. (Similar to the milk maids of the past being immune to small pox b/c they'd been infected with cow pox.) As far as other diseases, I have similar opinion: it's a shot in the dark. Money spent for a disease that may never be encountered, and if your flock is healthy, they will most likely not get sick.

How to build flock immunity? I'm a fan of getting chicks exposed to native soils while their "peri-hatch" immunity is highest. (within the first 2 weeks) I give them a plug of sod: toss it right into the shavings in the brooder (upside down). I also put them on fermented feed. If you don't want to do FF, then you can do natural ACV with the mother, plus the sod, and add some packaged probiotics.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Additionally, once you've received your chicks, the vaccination options are much more difficult and expensive. The time to make that decision is when ordering your chicks.

Regarding medicated feed: It contains Amprolium, which is a Thiamine blocker. This prevents thiamine uptake by the coccidiosis organism, therefore it can't replicate to get a strong foot hold in your chicks gut. Cocci are present in all soils. They cause disease when chicks are immune compromised, stressed, or otherwise weakened, kept in a damp environment where the cocci thrive. You can have chicks get coccidiosis without ever being exposed to the soil, or you can raise chicks for a whole life time without ever encountering it. I've never had it in any of the chicks I've raised. I've never given them medicated feed, and never intend to b/c I will use the natural approach to boost their immunity. It's an individual decision regarding medicated feed, and neither approach is wrong. What is wrong is if some one tells you that what ever choice you make is wrong.

I personally don't want to do vaccination, ect. but I also do not want to compromise my flock either. 95% of the chicks in question have been hatched/raise by me. I do plan to sell some chicks in the future as well.

Sooo.. as far as Mareks goes, I actually do have 4 young turkey's in my grow out pen with my chicks and we have wild turkeys each years hatched in our woods. (not close to the pen) So its possible they are already carrying the Mareks disease?? Is that safe for them to carry?

 

[lazy gardener]

Safe for who to carry? Chickens or turkeys? I would not worry about my flock picking up disease from wild bird populations. If I worried about that, I'd have to keep my flock in a bubble, and would not enjoy them. I've never seen a dead turkey. Though, I suppose that if one were to die from Mareks, the other woodsy critters would dispose of the body quite quickly. Personally, I don't consider that not vaccinating is "compromising" my flock. There is risk in everything we do. IMO, I'm much more likely to have predator losses than disease losses. And, I've yet to have a predator loss... (in the last 30 years). Though, I've come close: through a man+woman to 2 snarly dogs confrontation. So, I guess, I've not helped you much. I can say that you have to choose the path that is right for YOU. No matter what choice you make, it will be the correct choice for you! Don't let any one guilt you in either direction, and I certainly hope I've not done that!!

 

[Allie3513]

I'm so confused. LOL!

I'm just came here asking for advice and information, because I dont want to compromise MY flock if not vaccinating them indeed will or if I haven't done something I should, ect. because I have not done anything other than medicated feed.

I'm not judging anyone choices on what they do to theirs. I was just stating my purpose in asking because I just don't know what I'm doing.

 

[Allie3513]

On the Marek advice, I will just have to do some research on it. I don't know anything about it.

 

[rides2far]

Allie, I had my chicks from Ideal vaccinated. The vaccination does not prevent Mareks, but my understanding is it can mitigate the acuteness of the tumors from Mareks. I don't have a problem with vaccinating. Before my grand babies were born I got the whooping cough shot so I couldn't make my babies sick. That being said, I ended up buying some chicks from the feed store that weren't vaccinated. I plan on keeping a closed flock, so my hens should be fine. If you're careful about bringing in new birds, your flock should be fine, just follow the quarantine guidelines that appear on BYC. Good luck with your little ones

 

[Allie3513]

I'm not against vaccinations. I just don't want to mess with it if I don't need to.