Blackhead Prevention

[kfelton0002]

Hello Everyone,

I am not new to turkeys, but I am starting with a new set of poults. To begin, I will supply a little history. We attempted to raise a turkey on our property with chickens a couple of years ago, but the jenny got blackhead and passed away before I could begin treatment. I am an RN and a long time chicken keeper so medications, injections, de-worming, and all of that I am plenty familiar with. Blackhead was positively confirmed with a necropsy performed by myself as evidenced by the bullseye lesions on the liver. At the time, I had also split on an order of Royal Palm poults with a friend and they were still in an indoor brooder off the ground and away from chickens at the time of my jenny's passing. The more I researched blackhead, the more I became discouraged and swiftly gave all of the poults to my friend to spare them an untimely demise on my property to the infection. She had previously had turkeys on her property before so I assumed Blackhead wasn't an issue for her. However, I later learned that she had lost some turkeys suddenly from illness in a previous batch but the survivors matured and grew into adulthood and were healthy. Unfortunately, she also has chickens on her property and also had chickens in the pen she eventually kept the RP poults after they were about half grown. When they were about 3 months old some of them were infected with Blackhead. Again, positively confirmed with necropsy performed by me. However, she was able to save the rest of them with a prescription of metronidazole from her veterinarian. They grew up and eventually developed a strong enough immune system to protect them against Blackhead. She never separated them from her chickens. Sorry for the long backstory.

Anyway, I recently got the desire to try again with turkeys and acquired 12 Sweetgrass poults this past weekend. I will also be getting 2 Narragansett poults Thursday. I have stocked up on cayenne (5 pounds of it!) for prevention and lots of metronidazole for treatment of Blackhead just in case. The people I got the Sweetgrass poults from are very good friends and have also struggled with Blackhead in the past. They swear by cayenne in their drinking water for prevention and said they have not lost a single turkey to Blackhead since they started using cayenne. I have removed chickens from about a 1/3 acre lot that my Pyrenees live in. The lot has sandy soil and plenty of grass for the turkeys to graze on. I will put agricultural lime and fresh bedding down in the outdoor brooder my poults will go into when they outgrow the indoor one. And I will never confine them with chickens. However, the 1/3 acre lot has had chickens in it, just a few weeks ago actually but not in a concentrated way. I will regularly de-worm my turkeys every 3 months with fenbendazole. I will also closely monitor them for signs of Blackhead and begin treatment immediately. I know the dosage (25mg/kg twice daily for 5 days) and have plenty of metronidazole (about 100+ 500mg tablets).

If anyone can illuminate anything further I can do to prevent Blackhead in my precious turkey poults I would be greatly appreciative of any advice, guidance, and support provided in this thread.

Thanks in advance!

 

[R2elk]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/histomoniasis-yellow-urate-lethargy-in-poult.1349852/

@casportpony

 

[casportpony]

When I've had mine necropsied by UD Davis, they have always found a secondary E. coli infection, so if I were you, I would get a bottle of injectable Baytril and give that in addition to the metronidazole.

Since you have 500 mg metronidazole tablets, you might want to get some compounding liquid so that you can dose more accurately.

Do you have a scale to weigh the poults on?

 

[kfelton0002]

When I've had mine necropsied by UD Davis, they have always found a secondary E. coli infection, so if I were you, I would get a bottle of injectable Baytril and give that in addition to the metronidazole.

Since you have 500 mg metronidazole tablets, you might want to get some compounding liquid so that you can dose more accurately.

Do you have a scale to weigh the poults on?

I read about the secondary E. Coli infection and have actually already ordered some water-soluble Enrofloxacin until I can get my hands on some injectable Baytril. I just forgot to mention it in my post. It has gotten harder to come by injectable Baytril it seems. We don't typically have to use it in our chickens, so we stopped keeping it on hand.

I will look into the compounding liquid, is it just sterile water? Can you direct me to where I can obtain some? I work in healthcare and can probably buy some from the pharmacy. But my plan was to crush the tablets in a pill crusher and dissolve it in about 20ml of water and administer it more accurately that way. For example if there is 500mg in 20ml of water, there is 25mg/ml of water. If the dose is 25mg/kg twice daily, the dosing would be easy that way. I could keep any remaining suspension in the fridge.

I have an accurate scale to measure birds. I actually obtained their baseline weights today when I put their temporary color coded zip ties on until I get them wing banded. I plan on weighing them at least every 2 weeks.

 

[casportpony]

I read about the secondary E. Coli infectio and have actually already ordered some water-soluble Enrofloxacin until I can get my hands on some injectable Baytril. I just forgot to mention it in my post. It has gotten harder to come by injectable Baytril it seems. We don't typically have to use it in our chickens, so we stopped keeping it on hand.

Water soluble can work too if their digestive tract is functioning properly.

I will look into the compounding liquid, is it just sterile water? Can you direct me to where I can obtain some? I work in healthcare and can probably buy some from the pharmacy.

Google Enfloxil 10% & Enroxil10%, those should be easy to get.

But my plan was to crush the tablets in a pill crusher and dissolve it in about 20ml of water and administer it more accurately that way. For example if there is 500mg in 20ml of water, there is 25mg/ml of water. If the dose is 25mg/kg twice daily, the dosing would be easy that way. I could keep any remaining suspension in the fridge.

I've tried that, and the stuff either floats or sinks, so now we use Ora-Blend:

https://www.amazon.com/Ora-Blend-Flavoring-473-ml-bottle/dp/B011JFZR8O

I have an accurate scale to measure birds. I actually obtained their baseline weights today when I put their temporary color coded zip ties on until I get them wing banded. I plan on weighing them at least every 2 weeks.

Perfect!

 

[kfelton0002]

Water soluble can work too if their digestive tract is functioning properly.

Google Enfloxil 10% & Enroxil10%, those should be easy to get.

I've tried that, and the stuff either floats or sinks, so now we use Ora-Blend:
View attachment 3490718
https://www.amazon.com/Ora-Blend-Flavoring-473-ml-bottle/dp/B011JFZR8O

Perfect!

Thank you for all the advice! I may try to get some injectable Enrofloxacin to keep on hand as well.

What measures do you use to prevent Blackhead? Will removing chickens from the area help prevent it? I've read the cecal worms and earthworms that are in the ground will always carry Blackhead if it is in my area. That is disappointing. I was hoping I could just keep chickens out of there and eventually not have to worry about it in the turkey lot.

 

[casportpony]

I've found that the longer you can keep them off the dirt, the better they do. And my grow out pens have horse stall mats in them. So I think that helps too.

 

[kfelton0002]

@casportpony since the ora blend is basically just a viscous flavored syrup used as a vehicle to mix medication suspensions, do you think using honey and water to increase the viscosity would work with trying to administer the crushed tablet? Honey would give them a little sugar for energy. What do you think? My brain is always trying to come up with ways to do things on the cheap. lol

 

[kfelton0002]

I've found that the longer you can keep them off the dirt, the better they do. And my grow out spends have horse stall mats in them. So I think that helps too.

So basically like preventing coccidiosis, the longer you can keep them from being exposed the better until their immune systems are strong enough to have a fighting chance. I will look into the horse stall mat. Will the agricultural lime kill the worms and blackhead in the brooder soil?

 

[kfelton0002]

@casportpony what is the earliest you would recommend putting them in an outdoor brooder on the ground?