Medicated vs Nonmedicated feed...

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 5:52 pm

thegawd wrote:QR_BBPOST check out this article about going antibiotic free... it kinda ties in here.

http://www.wattagnet.com/articles/24230 ... id=1179145

But this has a factory farm mentality. less crowding should be mandated and not subjective to antibotic admistration. Barns should be concrete floors and cleaned out after or the bedding treated for disease before a new flock moves in. If they can spray crops with airplanes and destroy the good in our soil, water and air (and key indicator species don't lie) surely they can handle some disinfecting on a small scale per/barn. This all sounds like excuses to me.

What he didn't talk about was how antibiotics fed to animals is breeding super viruses, making humans antibotic resistant, and then we have soil and water contamination.
Also what he didn't talk about is how mankind is out of control with its population and we are teetering on sustainability, if not surpassing it, and if it wasn't chickens it is the cows and so on.

I'm not out to get the chicken farmer, but when someone speaks/writes so one sided I just can't accept their comments.

Post by **thegawd** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 6:16 pm

the idea behind not entirely cleaning n disinfecting the barns is so that there is some disease left behind in order for the new birds to become resistant. thats what a lot of old timers did and never had any problems, especially with pigeons. but i totally just sterilized my brooder... the coop... nope never sterilized that or the rv coop... ect... i clean them out thoroughly though a few times a year.

the one chicken farmer I know is a great guy and he loves his birds. he has only 3 barns with 10 000 in each and has less than 5% losses. which is darn good. i believe he cleans out the barns with a loader and then hoses them out. I believe thats all he does. any birds that were left behind he catches and puts in his own freezer instead of just pushing out with the bedding. he can't do it even though they are supposed to be disposed of.

iv been in his barns and they really are not that bad, I was expecting way worse. his birds are not side by side by side. theres room for them to move although they would rather just stuff there face. it was a really cool operation!

he was just as interested in my set up as I was in his. he toured mine and I toured his. he would love to have a backyard flock but he is not really allowed to.

the US though has barns with a million birds in them, they love there chicken! and not many people care where it comes from, that size of operation would cripple the farmer if they suffered such massive losses due to not using antibiotics.

im not saying I dont agree with you as most of it I do but we have to feed the cities somehow....

ross · Post by **ross** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 6:22 pm

I might add , affordably , feed the cities . Luck

Post by **thegawd** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 6:25 pm

exactly Ross. that really is where the problem lies.

kenya · Post by **kenya** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 6:52 pm

I don't use the medicated feed any longer, I used to but found the chicks just weren't as thrifty as unmedicated chicks. I try to train the chicks to eat out of a container or only a certain section of the brooder. :Shark:

Post by **WLLady** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 7:25 pm

Some antibodies are passed to the kids through yolk, but having tried myself to raise antibodies in chickens and isolate from yolk the levels are extremely low. We gave up on it and went back to classical antibodies raised in rabbits. As for whether levels are sufficient for the chick i have no clue.

SandyM · Post by **SandyM** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 8:40 pm

This is all very interesting :)

Good point on feeding the cities. Affordably. I completely agree of course. I volunteer at a food bank and see the need, even for the working class but I struggle with what we consider affordable. We all make room in our budget for Internet, cell phone, cable tv, entertainment, trips, etc etc etc but won't pay the extra for ethically raised and/or organic foods.

Robbie · Post by **Robbie** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:11 pm

Just to stir the pot a little- organic does not mean pesticide free. It's the definition of whether the pesticide is"organic" according to the certifying organic muckyeymucks . Some so-called organic products are harsher on beneficials than some of the newer products.
Back when we were rife with chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides, back in the day of lead arsenate- "organic" might have meant those things we associate with it- but times are a changin'. Many of the newest products are highly specific, and quite benign.

Bobbi · Post by **Bobbi** » Thu Apr 07, 2016 9:22 pm

I feel high quality 22% non medicated starter, put ACV in their water every day, change water multiple times daily, clean out brooders every couple days, keep them warm, and keep Corid on hand if I need it.

windwalkingwolf · Post by **windwalkingwolf** » Fri Apr 08, 2016 5:15 am

[quote="SandyM" Ok, quick question again.
Surely there must be enough nutrients in a yolk that is their immune builder for the start off in life? Same as humans? We give some immunity to our newborns for the first 8 weeks I think it is?[/quote]

Short answer is yes, but It depends on several things, including which disease is in question. I found these: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25200368 , about passive immunity to salmonella enteriditis, and this one: http://www.thepoultrysite.com/focus/con ... -May08.pdf , testing immunity to three different diseases; Newcastle, IB and ILT. Antibodies were passed from mother to egg to chick in all three cases, providing some protection against the first two, but in the case of ILT, did not prevent infection. And that the protective effect commonly lasts 1-2 weeks and not more than 4 weeks.
BUT, coccidiosis is caused by protozoan parasites, not viruses or bacteria. I found this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20452286 and would love to read the full article, but can't LOL, so I'm unsure what it says about maternal antibodies to coccidia. There are, I think, 9 different protozoans that cause the umbrella disease coccidiosis, so even if a chick is hatched with some protection, it may not have resistance against all of them, I just don't know.
I don't feed medicated, becuase I would worry about vitamin deficiency, and because I'm cheap. Unmedicated food costs less :/. I've been lucky, in that coccidiosis is one of the few problems I have NOT had lol. Birds that fully free range outdoors are less likely to pick up a dangerous load than confined ones, so I have that in my favour. If I had to pen young chicks in a small area on the ground, or got a clinical infection, I would definitely rethink my chick feed.