Turkey Poults Flip Over Syndrome-F.O.S.-My experience and what I did. - Page 4

I have had a necropsy done. On a dog, not on birds. But I would take a bird if I had a serious problem in my flock and couldn't figure it out.

I drove 120 miles to deliver the animal in person.  Then it was a wait of a day to get results. If they have to develop cultures it will be even longer.

It cost some money, but if you are looking at losing your entire flock and the choice is to pay the vet or lose all your birds -- and for all you know, not be able to replace them if whatever it is has gotten into the soil,----  then it doesn't seem so expensive. 

But a local vet who can work on poultry? Forget it.

By the way, some states do very inexpensive necropsies for livestock, and poultry should count as livestock. Contact your state's veterinary university.

She died from adrenal failure.

We were freaked out because she started vomiting, her gums were white and cold,  and she died on the way to the emergency vet.  There was a dog poisoner in our town; not close to my house, but he'd already killed 8 dogs and we were going into total lock down if he'd moved into our neighborhood.

The sheriff caught the guy and he managed to convince a judge that 8 dogs dead, at different houses,  inside fences on their own property was accidental poisoning and the judge let him go.    He quit, though, because everybody knew who he was and I think he was told what was going to happen to him if any more dogs died.

Holy s**t that's a terrible way for a dog to die.This poisoner must be executed.
  The only reason I would use poison to kill animals is when foxes or other predators come near my property but I would never poison a dog.OMG

The judge let the guy off with NOTHING?  That is so WRONG!

I just wanted to add my 2 cents on Cackle Hatchery.  I live less than an hour from them and went in person and just purchased some heritage turkeys from them.

The room they had older chicks on "sale" was neat, clean, didn't have a stench or flies and no dead in the brooder cages.  They had a sink and soap available to wash hands.

I picked up 3 Palms and 4 BS along with about 16 large breed chicks.  They threw in an extra turkey and 3 extra chicks.  A few looked young enough to have just dried off.

One of the Palms inexplicably expired about 40 hours later.  I'm thinking the others smothered it at the bottom of the pile.  All the rest appear vigarous and healthy 9 days later, growing like weeds.

Estes Hatchery is also close, supplies the Orchelins and I've gotten very healthy chicks from them as well.  I will say Estes does offer far fewer breeds and on the whole, Cackle seems to have better "type".

I did see some old reviews where Cackle was having some health problems with thier stock.  They do post PIP certification now so IMHO those issues have been dealt with.   I have friends that predominately get thier stock from Cackle and they are happy with them as well.  They do have some nice looking birds, including turkey, peacocks and guineas.    They did loose about half thier turkey poults this year but that was to preditors, not health problems.

Anyway, yes, I would recommend Cackle from first hand, on site, experience.

I agree with Steve on this one.  The flippers aren't the ones you want to keep for breeding.  However, if they are just pets, and you mark them with bands or other marks so you don't use them for breeding, then there is no harm in keeping them alive as pets.  On the other hand, I don't cull them either, and I have had some tippy birds snap out of it and grow up just fine.  It's good to be reminded occassionally of the distinctions between the poultry breeder and the poultry hobbyist.  I'm mostly a hobbyist but I am trying to breed for certain colors, so I don't try too hard to save birds that seem to be struggling from congenic disorders, but if they pull through, they pull through.

Hi, I'm new to turkeys and one of my turkeys started to flip at about 8 weeks old. That was about 3 weeks ago. He is smaller then everyone else in the pen, but makes it ok after he can right himself. Will they grow out of this? I just don't want him to be suffering. He seems to do fine but when he flips over and struggles to get right side up again, I can't hardly stand it because it looks terrible. I want to give him a fighting chance and he can eat and drink by himself. Should I wait and see? Any long term experience with flippers?

Glad to hear you havent had any more problems in the years since your first problem. I have my 1st batch of bourbon reds they are about 3 weeks old. I have 5 and hope to have a good tom to hen ratio as I would like my own poults next year. Im glad you posted this so if I encounter this flip problem with my own poults I will have have a few ideas on how to handle them.