Can you eat chickens given medicated feed?

[chickenfever]

I have given my chickens medicated feed since chicks. They are not meat birds, and it was never my intention to eat them, but now I have too many roosters and want to butcher some of the more ornery ones. I don't want to possibly be eating any antibiotics. If I wait a certain amount of time, will the antibiotics be out of their system?

 

[smith2]

The antibiotic, amprolium, is supposed to be safe to eat when butchering chickens or eating the eggs; however, if you want to feed them antibiotic free for about 2 weeks you should be safe. Amprolium is excreted pretty quickly through the system.

 

[greyfields]

You can eat them. Just observe the withdrawal period on the feed tag. It's typically around 5 days.

 

[chickenfever]

Thank you, I didn't know that it would say on the bag. Unfortunately, I didn't keep the last bag. It's Purina Start & Grow, does anyone know what they say about a withdrawal period? I did look on their web site and they talk about the amprolium being only in the digestive tract and not going into the eggs, but they didn't say anything about the meat.