Quarantined Turkey

Hi,

This is my first post. I have 2 Bourbon Red Tom Turkeys, they are 1 year old. I bought them from a hatchery as babies. They are free range all the time in our yard/woods 24x7. They are given fresh water daily and chicken egg layer food. They have been healthy up until recently. Well at least one is not healthy, the other is fine. I quarantined, meaning put the sick bird in a coop and run area by himself. He is not eating or drinking, we are feeding and giving him water. He is not fanning out or gobbling. When he walks he is very unsteady and this seems to be getting worse. We bought starter feed for him as it is medicated and have been feeding him that as well as putting electrolytes in his water and also Wazine 17. My husband also bought Tetroxy HCA 280 which we are also putting in his water. We have been force feeding him/giving him water for 3 days now. Although he seemed more perky this morning, tonight he is falling over as he is terribly unbalanced. He also has been acting completely skittish, until tonight anyways, because I think he is getting worse. I am wondering if he may have blackhead? We raise meat birds (chickens) each fall in their own run/coop, but when our Toms (we used to have 3 until we sold one), started fighting really bad, we separated them sometimes and put one in the chicken run (separation never lasted for more than 1 hr.). Do you think I'm right that he has blackhead or are there other illnesses with symptoms like he has? I should mention that he did have runny poops for about a week before we quarantined him, now they are formed but soft. Any ideas/help would be appreciated. And no, I will not be putting any more turkeys in the chicken run!

Without more symptoms it can be hard to diagnose lethargy and not eating as most diseases have those as their main symptoms. You said he, so I'm assuming it's a Tom. Medicated feed is for building resistance to cocidiosis in chicks, it probably won't do much. The fact that he's been eating layer feed could possibly cause problems from too much calcium which can damage their kidneys.

My turkeys and chickens range in the same area without troubles because we don't have blackhead in our soil, so it wouldn't cause problems unless you have it in your area. I would think you don't as you would have lost birds to it by now.

I'm not sure what else you could do for him without a clearer diagnosis. Sorry.

Well our Tom turkey is still alive this am. Still not eating or drinking on his own. I ordered some copper sulfate and zole to see if either of those will help. I plan to discontinue the tetrosy when we hit 7 days and should receive our other medication by then. He stumbles around when he moves, it's so sad to see. Question though, should I not be feeding the turkeys layer feed? I was told by extension that this is what I should feed them. Now I'm curious what others feed their adult turkeys? I put some of the turkeys poo in a glass with water to see if I see any worms, and I don't. I know that not all can be seen however. I probably will take a few samples in to the vet to be tested. His drunken staggering has me the most worried. Any other good ideas? Also, can I test my soil for blackhead? I live in NW Wisconsin.......

Stumbling sometimes can be botulism. Is it possible he got into some moldy feed or ate maggots? Well if you are in Wisconsin too, I feed the all flock pellet from Fleet Farm made by sprout, I provide a separate dish of oyster shells for my hens.