Blackhead, turkeys and cayenne!!!

[Belinda M Moore]

**this is my personal experience with an outbreak of blackhead in my turkey flock. If your turkeys are showing signs and not eating, this method may not work for you and prescription medication may be warranted.

Also take care in reading labels and warnings if your turkeys are a meat stock or if you plan to sell the eggs, some medications are banned for human consumption of meat/eggs**

I have been raising large flocks of turkeys for two years. We also have 200+ chickens. Our turkeys got blackhead this spring and we lost two with 6 others very lethargic, yellow frothy poo, wings low to the ground and just plain sick looking. Blackhead does not necessarily turn their heads black. What it can do late in the disease is make breathing difficult which turns their heads a darker color due to lack of oxygen. Blackhead will destroy a turkey's liver, which is why the yellow frothy poo is a good indication of blackhead. We did a necropsy on one of the turkeys that died, we found the liver and our fears were confirmed with the bullseye sores shown on the liver (see pics on google or bing). With such a large flock (50 turkeys) I couldn't afford the medicinal treatments-- we're talking hundreds of dollars! I am a member of the American Pastured Poultry Producers and found multiple articles in the APPPA newsletters and by ATTRA. We needed something that was economical and natural. We don't use antibiotics in our flocks. Although this method has not been studied in documented research, pastured poultry producers have had great success with cayenne and we had to do something and quick. So we started socking the cayenne pepper to them immediately after reading the article. Turkeys and chickens cannot taste the hot of the pepper, so no worries there. Within two days of using the cayenne -- heavily applied to their feed, they all started acting more normal, and their poo started to turn back to brown, with a hint of black from the cayenne. We haven't lost a turkey since. When we butchered 20 of our turkeys two weeks ago, almost all of them had pock marks on their livers. But they were thriving! Most of them were over 20lbs each. What you have to remember is that blackhead stays in your soil for up to three years, treating them with fish zole, flagyl or other medicines will only treat that incident, it will come back. Adding ground cayenne, which we now buy by the 5 pound bucket, will keep your turkeys healthy -- but they may still carry or have the blackhead parasite. We feed the cayenne to the chickens and the turkeys daily. Cayenne will keep your eggs a nice orange color too! A bonus in the winter when snow covers our land for 6+ months and fresh grass and bugs are nonexistent! Cayenne has also been used to ward off cocci and other worms, but there are less articles using this method. All in all, if you want to keep turkeys with chickens, I suggest stocking up on cayenne. It has definitely worked for us and many other pastured poultry producers.

We listen to a live teleconference question and answer session offered monthly to paid members of APPPA and we asked about blackhead and cayenne. One of the producers that has flocks of 1,000 or more uses cayenne regularly. He told us to keep using it and we shouldn't lose anymore, although as stated, they may carry it.

I hope you find this article useful, it was a life (and money) saver for us and flocks.

Can I get some Cayenne peppers out of my garden and cut them up and give it to them?