ACS or not?

[Suechooks]

My first chicks are ready to go on to growers pellets this week. I'm not sure what are the disadvantages of giving them ACS pellets.
They will shortly be going to the allotment and eventually mixing with the older girls although the run they will start in hasn't been used for over 6 months and has been cleared of old chippings, disinfected and new stuff put in.
As I'm shopping for their feed tomorrow or Tuesday any advice will be much appreciated.

[Bramble-Poultry]

We use ACS feed - The idea behind an ACS feed is to limit the build up of Coccidia during growing hopefully allowing the bird to build up immunity natually and slowly ensuring a healthier adult bird. Coccidia can cause poor egg production a week bird and in extreme case death, it is not an easy bug to irradicate once you have it on site and it can come in with other poultry and with wild birds and even via human trasportation if you have visited somewhere else with poultry.

Disadvantages - From an organic point of veiw - well its not organic but then neither are you! to be Organic take years and lots of effort - totally pointless on a lottie, like all things its a balance trying to raise veg and chooks in as chemical free way as possible without comprimising your "yield" and their health, I don't actually put much weight behind orgainc anyways - its a buzz word with very little true meaning for the small scale producer.

Another major dissadvantage is that it doesn't actually innoculate the bird its limits the levels in its system but immunity actually comes from exposure to coccidia and teh bird developing its own immunity slowly and naturally but in a controlled way. So the bird has to be exposed to all forms of coccidia to devellop immunity!

Actual effect and benefit depends on feed uptake by the bird compared to coccidia exposure!!!

If you want full coccidia immunity to all strains then the only option is vaccination

Hope that helped and made sense!!

[Suechooks]

Marvellous thanks!
I'm inclined to use ACS feed but just wondered if there really are any major disadvantages. Problem is Farmgate make 2 sizes of chick crumb and growers and the smaller bags (7.5 kg) DON'T have ACS whereas the 20kg bags DO have it! I emailed the company to clarify. As I'll be using Growers for longer I have the choice whereas with the chick crumb it would have been wasted so only bought the 7.5 bag!

[Bramble-Poultry]

No Probs Sue - I thought that the 7.5kg bags were exactly the same as the 20kg bags - just smaller - not that i'm an expert a 7.5kg bag here is useless!!!

[RichmondHens]

No disadvantages, just that it's best not to let laying hens (or hens about to come into lay eg broodies) eat medicated feed as the medication will get into the egg.
Meat birds that are fed on grower pellets with ACS in have to go on a "withdrawal" feed (ie non ACS) for a week prior to slaughter, to allow time for the medication to leave the system.

[Suechooks]

Thank you RH. They're incubator hatched so no broody involved but good to know about the later stages (before eating that is ) as there will be some heading for the freezer. Hopefully next year there will be one of them broody and rearing so will remember your advice.