Blackhead Disease??

[casportpony]

Tubing info: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/805728/go-team-tube-feeding

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Sent you a PM with my number.

-Kathy

 

[zimzimberry]

Rooster Booster makes a pellet you mix with food. It's flavored & all my birds love it.

 

[casportpony]

Rooster Booster makes a pellet you mix with food. It's flavored & all my birds love it.

It won't treat blackhead.

-Kathy

 

[Chrleone28]

Ok here's an update and first of all, thanks to all who have responded to this thread.

I was able to get on the phone with Kathy and she was a tremendous help. She gave me a load of advice and shared some experiences and walked me through some things. She also answered some dumb questions I had (poultry keeping is fairly new to us so I have a lot to learn).

That being said, I was able to obtain the API General Cure from Pet Smart to treat the 2 new female turkeys with. I was trying to figure out the best way to administer it and while talking with Kathy I realized I could use one of the Safe Guard (panacur) syringes I have lying around. We breed rare species of turtles and tortoises here for a living and I buy Safe Guard in bulk for horses because it is an excellent dewormer for our tortoises especially. I took one of the syringes, emptied it and cleaned it out. I then mixed the dosage of API General Cure with a tad bit of water and teaspoon (give or take) of plain, fat free yogurt. Once it formed a loose paste, I got it all into the syringe and attached a piece of airline tubing (used for aquarium air pumps) to the end. As you can probably tell by now, we chose the tube feeding route, which is why I constructed this "thing-a-ma-jig". I went out to the coop and grabbed the bourbon red girl first and had my fiance hold her still in a towel. I snaked the airline tube down her throat with the syringe attached to the end of it. Once I could tell the end of the tube was in the crop, I pushed the paste down the tube out of the syringe and into the bird. Once it was all in there I removed the tube carefully and made sure she did not spit any up. I watched for a while once I put her back down to be absolutely sure she kept it all in. I then repeated this process with our blue slate girl.

I should also add that as per Kathy's suggestion, I burned the end of the airline tubing with a lighter to "smooth it out". This helped avoid scratching the birds' throats while pushing it in.

In addition to this, I added cayenne pepper to their water (they seem to love it and are drinking it readily) along with some jalapeno peppers for them to eat.

I hope it's not too late for the bourbon red and that both are going to be ok. Time will tell and I'll continue this regime for 5 days. I'll be sure to post any updates.

Thanks Kathy and to everyone else chiming in.

You live, you learn!

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Oh I'm so glad you had Kathy on the case with you on this one. What a true BYC friend on here. That kind of help and experience is so valuable. When you get a chance get a picture of your Bourbon and Blue Turkeys up here. It would be fun to see what they look like.

 

[casportpony]

If any of you ever need my help, just let me know and I'll do my best to help you come up with a solution. FYI, I just found these videos on crop feeding.

These are using a crop needle, not a plastic tube.

This one uses a tube like I use:

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

Oops!

 

[gmjandjmiller]

I am so glad to have this information. I would love to get turkeys but the local suppliers have scared me about this disease.

If I end up with turkeys that need treatment, are the eggs or the meat safe to eat?

Thank you!

 

[casportpony]

If they survive treatment and you you give the medicine enough time to clear their system, then I would say yes.

-Kathy