What medicine do I give a chick that hatched here?

[christineavatar]

I have just had my first chick survive to four weeks and it suddenly hit me - does s/he need immunity from anything? i live in the California Bay area by the Coast. I would sure hate it if anything like dying of a preventative ailment should befall this little little jewel.

 

[PunkinPeep]

Hi Christine,

The one thing i do for all my chicks is to expose them to the ground daily, asap, either by puttine local dirt in their brooder, or by giving them time outside on the ground. This is in order to prevent coccidiosis. Cocci types are specific to an area, and their protozoa live in the dirt, so it works to simply expose them to the soil. Since yours is already 4 weeks old, i would do this with back-up, meaning have some corid on hand in case of an outbreak of coccidiosis, and/or introduce medicated chick feed for the next three weeks. The medicated feed may not be enough to prevent an outbreak, but it might work. I would have the corid on hand in case it doesn't.