what to feed meat chicks

[1muttsfan]

Love the UP, eh (and BYC)

 

[Arielle]

I am raising egg-laying chickens currently. With the hopes of raising some meat ones so I haunt the Meat Breeds section.

Before buying my chicks I did an intensive research about Mercks and cocidia because all poultry hatcheries (the big ones) offer Mereck and one (MM) offers coccidia vac. I tracked down an article about a poultry meat producer that was having trouble with coccidia even with a medicated feed so a vaccination program was implimented. WIth stellar results. I planned to keep my hens much longer than the few weeks to grow out a meat bird so I thought the coccida vaccine was worth the cost. ANd Merecks--any cases I have read here on BYC, most or all the birds in the flock died. THat was enough to convince me to vaccinate. Vaccinations are allowed under the organic rules from what I have read, for those following that route. Finding the right feed was difficult. Had to give a game bird crumble which is too high in protein; so I dilute it with vegies and fruit. I guess all the experience with egg layers is preparing me for the meaties!

 

[1muttsfan]

No one up here carries any organic feeds at all. If you could find organically grown oats, that can be used to reduce the protein level too. For example if you have a 20% ration and want 16%, whole oats average about 14%, so you would use about 1 part oats to 2 parts feed (by weight). Use rolled oats for chicks.

 

[1muttsfan]

Ariel, you are right, there is a coccidia vaccine - something new every day. However if you look into it a little, it was developed for use by organic growers in situations where the chicks are in damp, crowded conditions, and is somewhat questionable in effectiveness. Keeping your chick pen clean and dry, with clean water, is very important whether you vaccinate or not. Sometimes crowding young chicks is very hard to avoid, and for those folks it may be worthwhile.

 

[chickened]

Most organic remedies are questionable compared to traditional methods, example; DE versus Sevin.

 

[1muttsfan]

Very true. Obviously the best thing would for there to be small numbers of birds in unlimited space - not going to happen at my house. If my birds ran free their chance of making it to adulthood would be approximately zero percent, way too many predators around here.

 

[chickened]

I know what you mean I don't mind feeding wildlife just not feeding them my chickens.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

Quote:
There is a cocci vacs available for broiler, mainly for organic production as it's sprayed on the chicks when they are day old. Pretty neat to watch, some places actually spray green on the chicks and when they preen their feathers they are able to build up some immunity.

Any kind of coccidiostat helps in this type of weather... wet warm soils/bedding is bad news. However it usually isn't a problem for smaller scale poultry operations.

 

[1muttsfan]

Quote:

 

[1muttsfan]

Quote:
There is a cocci vacs available for broiler, mainly for organic production as it's sprayed on the chicks when they are day old. Pretty neat to watch, some places actually spray green on the chicks and when they preen their feathers they are able to build up some immunity.

Any kind of coccidiostat helps in this type of weather... wet warm soils/bedding is bad news. However it usually isn't a problem for smaller scale poultry operations.

See above post on coccidia vaccine (not cocci)