[CrunchyKat]

Some advice please  If I use organic chick crumb do I then need to treat the chicks with anti-coccidiostat or is there no need?  TIA 

[benkt]

I'm not sure I understand the question : Anti cocci medication is not organic.

 If you want to be organic, you'll have to manage infection in a different way and/or use organic alternatives to medication e.g. garlic (I think?).
If you don't want to be organic, then just buy regular medicated food and save yourself some money.

Personally, I use un-medicated chick crumbs and manage infection by keeping small batches of chicks on dry, clean straw and moving the location of chick pens around once they get outdoors. I have lost a few chicks to cocci very occasionally, I think both times its been when we have a very wet period just after a larger-than-usual group got moved outside - as then it can be hard then to keep bedding clean and dry enough.

You have to weigh up the pros and cons for yourself and decide what you feel is best for your chicks.

[CrunchyKat]

Thanks for your advice. I have been using non-organic chick crumb but we've decided to raise some chickens for meat so I'd prefer them on an organic feed, I just wasn't really sure how much of an issue coccidiosis is. I need to research some organic methods of disease prevention. 

[landroverroy]

 You can prevent coccidiosis in chicks  by feeding them whole grain + grit (or access to outside ) along with their chick crumbs. 
 The coccidia are ground up in the crop, along with the grain, so never progress any further to damage the gut.
 Chick crumbs, or mash, alone do not stay long enough in the crop for the cocccidia to be destoyed by the grinding action.

[Sylvia]

True! Even little chicks manage whole grains and are better for it.

[CrunchyKat]

You can prevent coccidiosis in chicks  by feeding them whole grain + grit (or access to outside ) along with their chick crumbs. 
 The coccidia are ground up in the crop, along with the grain, so never progress any further to damage the gut.
 Chick crumbs, or mash, alone do not stay long enough in the crop for the cocccidia to be destoyed by the grinding action.

Wow, that's really interesting, thanks for sharing 

[Womble]

So Roy, does that mean that this is another disease we've brought on ourselves through 'modern' farming methods?

The other example I can think of is BSE - we (revoltingly) fed sheep remains to cows for many decades before it ever became a problem. However, the old fashioned method involved rendering for long periods of time, which killed the infection, whereas BSE was caused by an 'improvement' in the process to reduce the processing time, hence not killing the Scrapie infection, and hence leading to BSE I believe!

[Rosemary]

Interesting about the corn. I've always started feeding corn about 8 weeks but if you think about it, chicks out with a hen eat corn - well, whatever they can find really.

I will certainly do that in future. Thanks.

[robert waddell]

womble    coccidiosis has been around for a long time well before modern diseases
you are part right with the bse  it was meat and bone meal that was Incorporated into animal feed (high protein content)          they the renderers association lobbied for a change in the rules to go from batch processing to continuous flow processing combined with the introduction of compulsory warble fly treatment(at the request of the hide manufacturers) with organophosphates
the government white jacket brigade have failled to pinpoint bse as they have done with the last outbrake of foot and mouth (rather convenient for them that hendon on the wall were swill feeders short cutting the system even although the government were pricing sleepers and disposal of large volumes of animals at the same time   they also did this with previous outbreaks)