Turkey Poults with bad legs - graphic pics

We have a batch of heritage turkeys right now that are about 5-6 weeks old and have been raised in a brooder with chicks and guinea fowl and are now free ranging during the day. We noticed that two of the bourbon reds began showing deformity of the legs ~2wks ago and we culled them today as they were no longer leaving the brooder to free-range with the others, and they looked really sad

Below are some pictures of their legs. To me it looks like irregular bone growth, not like a soft tissue problem (they didn't have slipped tendons). They appear to have the problem at different levels of the leg but neither could get around well.

We were feeding 24% crumbles and supplementing with the occasional hard boiled egg. When I noticed the legs I began adding nutria-drench to the water in hopes a general supplement would prevent the problem in the others. So far nobody else has had any issues, we have 11 others.

Anyone have any suggestions to avoid this in the future?


This is the better of the two


This poor guy was really bad

I'm going say I would think it's a genetic thing, maybe it's the photos but those are some thick legs for body size, though maybe mine would look like that plucked. What you're feeding sounds okay to me, I actually raise mine on chick starter because I don't think fast growth on higher protein is good for them, others will probably come in and say otherwise again though. I don't think it's an injury because there is two of them. Did you start them on a non slippery surface, and make sure your feed is not too old, both could cause deficiency, or leg development problems.

chicknshrimp said:

We have a batch of heritage turkeys right now that are about 5-6 weeks old and have been raised in a brooder with chicks and guinea fowl and are now free ranging during the day. We noticed that two of the bourbon reds began showing deformity of the legs ~2wks ago and we culled them today as they were no longer leaving the brooder to free-range with the others, and they looked really sad

Below are some pictures of their legs. To me it looks like irregular bone growth, not like a soft tissue problem (they didn't have slipped tendons). They appear to have the problem at different levels of the leg but neither could get around well.

We were feeding 24% crumbles and supplementing with the occasional hard boiled egg. When I noticed the legs I began adding nutria-drench to the water in hopes a general supplement would prevent the problem in the others. So far nobody else has had any issues, we have 11 others.

Anyone have any suggestions to avoid this in the future?


This is the better of the two


This poor guy was really bad

Click to expand...

Maybe a niacin deficiency?


-Kathy