Any Turkey Poult Advice Welcome

[DavKarm]

I am having trouble keeping my turkey poults alive.....

I have all the heating and food requirements correct.

I have a chick in with them to help them learn to eat and drink

I've changed the bedding type from pine shavings to sand so they wouldn't eat the bedding.

Why do they keep dying? They seem fine and then suddenly over the course of 24 hours 3-4 will suddenly die.

I had assumed diseased but took 3 of the dead poults to an Avian-specialist Vet and she performed an autopsy....saw no sign of parasites or disease.

I have a mixed age group now. (I buy 12 poults - and 2 survive. So, now I have a mixed age group from 6 weeks - 1 week) Yesterday, my 5 week old poult died for no apparent reason. He was running around find, eating, drinking, and then in the morning he was dead.

I'm feeling like this wasn't meant to be and it's breaking my heart.

I'm looking for "NON-STANDARD" suggestions. Anything you can think of that might help.

THANKS!

 

[GardienneWings]

Trying to think outside the box here:

Did you have them shipped to you? I had that problem with shipped poults years ago and after I started raising my own have hardly had any losses. I think that poults are just too fragile to stand the stress of shipping....

I would try more than 1 chick in with them or, even better, something very active like guinea keets.
Use Sav-a-chick in the water.
Are they getting damp/wet at all from their bedding? If a poult gets wet it loses it's body heat and will die very quickly.
Any sign of Coccidea? Maybe add Sulmet to their water just to be sure...or use medicated starter.

The first 2 weeks are usually touch and go with poults (I don't sell them under 2 weeks old for that reason) but by 3-4 weeks they usually are pretty stable. Good luck!

Val

 

[A.T. Hagan]

What exactly are you feeding them?

 

[DavKarm]

None of my poults were shipped. I received 1/2 from a local breeder and the other 1/2 from the feedstore here in town.

I suppose it is possible they could be damp - but I have them on sand, and with the heat lamps it dries very quickly.

I'm feeding them Game-bird starter - I have a dish of it dry and then another dish where I've moistened it with water an turned it into a mash, of sorts.

I will try some Sulmet in the water.