“Why I Don’t Use Medicated Feed — And You Probably Shouldn’t Either” by Carey Blackmon | Show Pro Farm Supply
Let me be straight with you the way I always am: I don’t feed medicated starter feed. Not to my chicks. Not to my breeders. Not at any stage of development. And if you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know I don’t say things like that without being able to back them up.
So let’s talk about it.
The Selling Point vs. The Trade-Off
The main reason people reach for medicated chick starter is coccidiosis prevention. Corid, the brand name most folks know, contains amprolium — a drug that works by mimicking Vitamin B1 (thiamine) closely enough that coccidia parasites absorb it instead of the real thing. Without thiamine, the coccidia can’t reproduce and they die off.
Simple enough, right?
Here’s the problem. Amprolium doesn’t just fool the coccidia. It competes with thiamine at the same absorption sites in the intestine — your chick’s intestine. That means while you’re blocking the parasite, you’re also blocking one of the most critical vitamins a young bird needs to grow, develop, and thrive.
You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. And Peter, in this case, is the future of your flock.
What Thiamine (B1) Actually Does
Thiamine isn’t just some checkbox on a feed tag. It is foundational to how a chick converts feed into energy. It powers the metabolic pathways that fuel growth. It’s essential to nervous system development. Without adequate B1, you don’t get a thriving chick — you get a bird that’s anorexic, lethargic, neurologically impaired, and stunted. In severe deficiency, you get death.
Research from the Department of Poultry Science and Graduate School of Nutrition at Cornell University confirmed exactly this. Gries & Scott (1972) demonstrated that thiamine-deficient chicks exhibited severe anorexia, retarded growth, nervous derangements, and mortality. The Cornell study found that thiamine deficiency produced severe anorexia, retarded growth, nervous derangements, and death in chicks. These aren’t minor inconveniences. These are catastrophic outcomes for any serious breeder.
And here’s something that hits even closer to home for breeders: a separate study from the University of Saskatchewan — published in the International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research — found that maternal thiamine levels directly affect thiamine status and metabolism in offspring. The University of Saskatchewan research concluded that maternal thiamine nutrition affects thiamine status indices and thiamine metabolism in offspring, with maternal thiamine supplementation shown to increase heart thiamine levels and critical enzyme activity in day-old chicks.
Read that again. What you’re feeding your breeding hens affects the nutritional status of the chicks that come out of those eggs. If your breeder hens are thiamine-compromised — whether from medicated feed, poor nutrition, or both — those chicks are already behind before they ever hit the brooder.
The Science on Amprolium and Thiamine Blockage Is Not New
This isn’t fringe information. This has been documented in peer-reviewed research since the early 1960s. Polin, Wynosky & Porter — publishing in The Journal of Nutrition — conducted a direct study on amprolium’s impact on thiamine in laying hens and their offspring. Their research found that when amprolium was fed at 2,000 ppm or more to laying hens, it produced lowered feed intake, decreased rate of lay, increased embryo mortality, and lowered chick viability at hatch — with associated sharp drops in yolk thiamine concentrations, in some cases to barely detectable levels. All of the adverse effects were counteracted when thiamine was administered, which also elevated yolk thiamine concentrations.
Let that sink in. Nearly undetectable levels of B1 in the egg yolk. Increased embryo death. Weaker chicks. And all of it reversed when thiamine was restored.
Amprolium doesn’t just affect the chick you’re treating today. It threatens the generation you’re trying to produce.
So How Do You Prevent Coccidiosis Without the Drug?
This is where I see people overcomplicate something that is actually straightforward. Coccidiosis thrives in specific conditions — warm, wet, contaminated environments where chicks are constantly re-exposed to high oocyst loads. Remove those conditions and you remove most of the risk.
Here’s how I do it:
Keep your brooder clean. Consistently. Not “when it looks bad” — on a schedule. Wet litter is the primary environment where coccidia multiply. Dry, clean bedding changes the equation entirely.
Get the feed off the ground. This one is non-negotiable for me. Use a tray, a bowl, a proper chick feeder — anything that prevents chicks from eating off contaminated litter. Direct fecal-to-oral exposure is how coccidial oocysts spread. Elevating the feed source breaks that transmission cycle.
Don’t overcrowd your brooder. Density drives disease. Give your birds room to move, keep stress low, and the immune system can do what it was designed to do.
Feed for immune function. This is where nutrition does the real work. A chick raised on a properly formulated feed — with bioavailable vitamins, functional minerals, and adequate protein — develops a stronger gut and a stronger immune response. That’s the long game. That’s what we build at Show Pro.
The Bigger Picture
I’ve spent years in this industry watching people throw cheap solutions at problems that require a smarter approach. Medicated feed feels like insurance. But what you’re actually doing is accepting a known nutritional compromise to prevent a management problem — one you can largely solve with a clean brooder and a proper feeder.
That’s not a trade I’m willing to make. Not when the science tells us clearly what thiamine deficiency costs: slow growth, neurological damage, poor hatch rates, and weakened birds from the shell forward.
The real insurance isn’t a drug. It’s a bird that’s built right from the inside out.
How Show Pro Breeder Supplement Changes the Equation
Here’s what most people miss: coccidiosis, mushy chick disease, failure to thrive, weak legs, poor feathering, low hatch rates — these aren’t random bad luck. In the majority of cases, they trace back to a nutritional gap somewhere in the chain. Either the breeder hen wasn’t getting what she needed, or the chick hit the brooder already behind.
That’s exactly the problem Show Pro Breeder Supplement was built to solve.
Formulated in collaboration with nutritionist Jeff Mattocks at Fertrell, Show Pro Breeder Supplement delivers the bioavailable vitamins, organic minerals, and essential amino acids your hens need to produce eggs with the nutritional foundation chicks require to develop properly — immune system and all. When a chick hatches from a hen that’s been on Show Pro, it isn’t starting from zero. It’s starting ahead.
Here’s why that matters for coccidiosis specifically: a chick with a properly developed immune system, adequate thiamine status, and functional gut integrity is dramatically more capable of handling low-level coccidial exposure without it turning into an outbreak. That’s not a theory — that’s basic immunology. You don’t fight disease with drugs alone. You fight it with strong birds.
Show Pro Breeder Supplement supports:
• Thiamine (B1) status — protecting the metabolic energy, nervous system development, and growth function that amprolium-based feeds undermine
• Immune system development — through bioavailable vitamins A, D, and E at levels that actually move the needle
• Gut integrity — the first line of defense against coccidiosis, mushy chick disease, and early chick mortality
• Hatchability and chick viability — because what comes out of that egg is a direct reflection of what went into that hen
You can keep your brooder clean. You can use a proper feeder. You can skip the medicated feed. But if the hen laying those eggs isn’t fully nourished, you’re already fighting uphill before the chick takes its first breath.
No fillers. No shortcuts. No compromise.
That’s not just a tagline — it’s the standard your birds deserve.
Ready to build a stronger foundation for your flock?
Show Pro Breeder Supplement is available now. Text 205-940-1903 to order or ask questions — I answer personally.
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