Poultry pathologists and clinicians in the United States have generally assumed that water is better than feed as a drug carrier in coccidiosis control. This idea is based on the assumption that sick birds stop eating before they stop drinking water. A maxim frequently quoted from a veterinary pharmacology textbook (3) reads, Ill birds will continue to drink water but they will not eat in the late stages of the disease.
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Reid et al. (1965) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched one closely related paper. Consider it for comparative context: