Baby turkey taking a turn for the worse...

[jaimie44]

My order from Cackle was received last Friday morning. All 19 have been doing so good until this evening. I have two black palm turkeys and the smaller one is not doing so good. Lethargic, sleeping while the others walk all over him. Im not certain hes been eating or drinking today. I know he was yesterday. I took him out and got him to drink a little sugar water from a syringe but Im worried he wont make it. The brochure from Cackle mentions turkeys and having some "starve outs"..what the heck does that mean? Any thoughts on what I can do???

 

[briana1975]

I don't know what that is, but I have had 1 turkey and 3 chicks do it. I call it failure to thrive. It's like they don't want to live and stop eating and drinking and just die. I usually keep giving them water and feed them a wet mash of their feed for anywhere to 3 -5 days and if they still don't go and eat and drink on their own I give up and end up having to cull them. It is sad but I can't keep force feeding them, they have to do it themselves or they won't make it.

 

[jaimie44]

Thanks Briana. It is sad..I just want to "will" the little fella to live! I will try what youve mentioned tho and see if it helps.

 

[thndrdancr]

Jaime, sometimes they just seem to do this and it is sad.

One thing that I do is sprinkle a little bit of dry oats on their feed and they LOVE it, and sometimes the color will get them interested in food. There were a few I got to eat that way when they would eat nothing else and it got them going.

I usually feed them a mash (their food mixed with warm water) to begin with, then with the oats on top, also moist. Also, try putting some on the end of your finger, or in their brooder box at eye level for them. For some reason, I have noticed baby poults dont look at the ground for food at first, they are a bit stupid that way, so I smear some of the mash on the wall of their brooder box right at their eye level and they will peck at that many times and then they know to look around for the substance that looks like that. My turkey brooder boxes get dirty real quick with all the smearing I do with globs of food.

Just a few things to try. Good luck.

 

[jaimie44]

Quote:
Thank you thndrdancr! Great ideas! I will try it

 

[longranger]

Poults are fragile. Once they begin a downhill spiral more often than not they die. Poults that are shipped can arrive "stressed" which is a nice way of saying they have had inadequate nutrition, crowding, less than optimal temps etc.. If the stress is not too bad the poults will eat, drink, sleep under the heat lamp and make a fast recovery.

Sugar in the water, optimal temperatures, feed under foot, and maybe a chick to help teach the poults the ropes can help but some of the poults may be too weakened to recover. These usually go down hill within hours or at most a couple of days.

This sad occurence is not limited to shipped poults. Poults hatched at home that can get chilled, aspirate while learning to drink, fall asleep directly under a heat lamp hung just a little too low or you name it. Poults requiring assistance to get hatched are particularly prone to die. IMHO you should let nature take its course with the rare exception of a nearly fully hatched poult that is stuck due to the position of the egg in the bator or similar obvious mechanical cause. The gist of this ramble is that poults are fragile and some will die. In most cases you cannot prevent it and being proactive during the hatching process usually does more harm than good. Same goes for syringe feedings that often cause aspiration. Aspiration virtually guarantees a dead poult even if it would have lived with no intervention.