CHICKEN HACK FOR COCCIDIOSIS PREVENTION

This evening I cleaned the brooders with my broilers in them. They are now at the age where they eat a lot and poop almost as much! They also look like hideous little half-feathered dinosaurs. It’s not the best stage.

Anyway – after scooping out their old shavings and replacing them with new ones, I did something that might seem counterproductive: I scooped some dirt from my outside runs and sprinkled it in the clean brooder.

Seems crazy, right? Not so! I chose not to vaccinate this batch of broilers against coccidiosis because I know that in the past, I have sometimes had trouble finding unmedicated chick starter. (Remember – you either vaccinate OR you feed medicated starter, not both. If you vaccinate but then feed medicated starter, it cancels out the vaccine and you have to keep feeding medicated starter from then on.)

Right now, the chicks are eating medicated starter in a relatively low-cocci environment. That medicated starter (which contains amprol, a coccidiostat, NOT an antibiotic) protects them against coccidiosis. In a week or so, they will be off the medicated feed and will be moved outdoors, where they will be exposed to the coccidiosis that already exists on my farm (and on every farm). I want to expose them to that cocci while they still have protection from the medicated starter, so that’s why I sprinkled the soil into my brooders. I did it last week as well, but I didn’t remember to post about it. It is my hope that they will build natural immunity this way – sort of like vaccinating them, but against the particular strain(s) of cocci that exist on my farm.