Lamontelle4
Chirping
- Aug 11, 2019
- 67
- 93
- 54
So four days ago I was outside taking care of my birds and I realized that my turkey wasn’t walking and was kinda sprawled out struggling to breath. She is a three year old broad breasted bronze that is a pet. She was mouth breathing so I thought she was having a heat stroke (which they are prone to). It wasn’t that hot outside (it was around 60 degrees Fahrenheit) But I still was worried because she was inside a closed coop and she is around 27 pounds. So I filled up a tub of cold water and let her sit in it. She continued to struggle to breath, and still wasn’t walking. I tried to figure out what was wrong with her. I read that when birds are struggling to breath they might have a gape worm parasite so I gave her some apple cider vinegar which is supposed to be a natural dewormer. Yesterday I realized that she has not been eating, and so far she hasn’t eaten in four days. My mom said that she might not be walking because she injured her legs while doing something. Broad breasted turkeys are extremely prone to joint issues because they are designed to be extremely heavy. But with all of her combined symptoms I am convinced that my turkey is unfortunately suffering from muscular dystrophy. I came onto the idea that she might have muscular dystrophy because even though she is a turkey, my grandmother had similar symptoms and she had muscular dystrophy. So I did some research. Muscular dystrophy is a genetic condition that chickens and turkeys can have. There isn’t much information on muscular dystrophy in birds but I did find a paper called Hereditary Muscular Dystrophy in the Domestic Turkey. The website I found it on is https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article-abstrac/58/4/189/771030?redirectedFrom=PDF. It was only a page from this paper but it had a few points that caught my attention. At the top of the page the first quote is “Mutations causing abnormalities in the structure and function are known to occur in the domestic turkey. These mutations principally involve skeletal or plumage alterations and not muscle defects. An autosomal recessive gene in the domestic fowl is responsible for a muscular dystrophy“. Basically it explains ”hypertrophy of muscles followed by atrophy is a typical syndrome“ Meaning that it is for turkeys to have limited movement because of there poor physic. But then it goes on and talks about the comparison between the types of human muscular dystrophy and the types that can be found in a broad breasted bronze turkey. To clarify the definition of muscular dystrophy is ”a hereditary condition marked by progressive weakening and wasting of muscles” -oxford dictionary. Now in the second part of the paper it doesn’t specify but it talks about a female broad breasted bronze, which is what my turkey is. This paper doesn’t discuss what the symptoms of muscular dystrophy in turkeys are. So I just went off of what the three main symptoms are (in general for a human), which are damaged muscles become progressively weaker, trouble breathing, and trouble swallowing. My turkey is experiencing all of these symptoms. And I realized that she is not only having a hard time walking but also using her wings, and she struggles to even hold her head up. I could be wrong my turkey might not have muscular dystrophy but something else. I’m not an expert, so I have no way to know unless I take her to the vet, which is kind of difficult right now because of COVID-19. And I know that muscular dystrophy doesn’t just come on all of a sudden, and that you see a gradual decline in activity, which is exactly what I have observed. She is three years old now. In her first year of life she was just a normal turkey that could run and was very active. Then she started to lay around more and stopped running. Then in her second and third year I had her walking became really difficult for her. I thought this was be of how heavy bodied she was, and I still believe that. I couldn’t find much online about muscular dystrophy in birds so I’m just going off the information that I could find. I believe that my turkey has muscular dystrophy. I hope I’m wrong though and that there is something else going on that is more treatable. But for now I’ll just keep trying my best and I will see if she gets any better. Does anyone else have experience with a turkey that has symptoms like this?
