Bleeding turkey tail HELP!! New Turkey Owner!!

kristianhope18

Chirping
5 Years
May 24, 2014
209
9
63
Pikeville, Kentucky
I walked outside and noticed my 6 week old royal palm turkeys tail was bleeding pretty bad!! I put him in isolation and gave him antibiotics in his water!! What else should I be doing??? What is wrong with him? What caused this??? He was in with a few 4 week old chicks??
400
 
U think so??? Could it have got snagged on something I did have a board in there that was on the end that blocked the wind that didn't totally reach the top of the cage so sometimes they would sit on top of it and I noticed and took it out immediately when that happened that a staple was sticking out of the top of the board! Could his tail have got snagged and then all the other chickens started pecking it because when I noticed they were pecking it? There was no hole in the wire or anything and its pretty small wire!
 
It could have happened by one of the other birds. This happened to us a few weeks ago in a brooder box of chicks inside the house. It was a White Leghorn approx. 3-4wks old. Injury looked absolutely identical to yours. I removed it and took it to the sink and washed off all the blood. After the bleeding stopped, I painted everything red with white French manicure nail polish. It was warm enough, so I turned off the light in the brooder to make the injury and paint job less noticeable to the other 11 chicks. Worked great and none of the others bothered it any more. I wonder if it happens sometimes to all white birds because as their feathers are sparse in the beginning, their pink skin really shows through where the tail is.
 
So it was in the coop when this happened?

In the pic it looks like the wire is 1x1 which really good, is it like that all over or are there lager spots?

I've seen a few chickens that have been grabbed by dogs or foxes that look just like that. Also saw one grabbed by a coon through 1x2 wire that also looked like that.


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The cage is all that same size! I'm actually
In the process of building my huge 20x8 cage right now with 12 individual hen houses and runs underneath! This cage was just meant for my young turkeys until they got a year old and then they would be moved to a dog lot! But I didn't have anywhere to put my new chicks so I decided to put them in with my older turkey that was their age until my coop is finished this week! They have been together for about 3 weeks or so now and everything has been great! They all got along really well up until yesterday! Everything was fine that morning and when I walked outside that afternoon I seen him on top of that board on the end and seen red so I ran down there and panicked! I took him out immediately but I noticed while I was trying to catch him that the other birds were pecking the bloody feathers in the process! I bought some of that blue spray at tractor supply today and sprayed on it and gave him some durmycin in his water! The vet told me that chickens will canobolize a turkey and to not put turkeys in with chickens! They can go with other turkeys just not chickens because the chickens will eat it alive! 0.0 I'm still not 100% positive on what made it bleed in the first place but there's no holes in the wire and its all the same small size! Ill send u a picture of it and a picture of how his tail was the day before this happened!! He was doing so good too!! (I keep calling him a he but I'm a new turkey owner so I really have no clue what it is lol Maybe one of you turkey experts can tell me!) I think he's a royal palm!!
 
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U think so??? Could it have got snagged on something I did have a board in there that was on the end that blocked the wind that didn't totally reach the top of the cage so sometimes they would sit on top of it and I noticed and took it out immediately when that happened that a staple was sticking out of the top of the board! Could his tail have got snagged and then all the other chickens started pecking it because when I noticed they were pecking it? There was no hole in the wire or anything and its pretty small wire!


That sounds likely. Close examination of wound might reveal the answer (laceration with plenty of `beak divots' removed around/along laceration). These guys will heal up nicely (keep up with the Blue Kote). Main problem at this time of year is fly activity (don't want maggots getting involved), a brief squirt-fine mist- with tick & flea spray on feathers (not wound) over injury will keep the flies at bay.
 
I did notice he had a few flys in his little cage
I moved him into!! I have a old red house on my property thats gutted on the inside but we still keep power in it and use the garage! I keep all my chicks in the back bed room!! Normally I hatch the chicks move them in a tote in the house for a week then they go to the red house and then after 4 or 5 weeks they go outside! Anyway I moved the turkey back in the bedroom in a small cage with a quart feeder and waterer! I wrapped a atv nylon stretchy rope tie with hooks on each end around the waterer to keep him from knocking it over and I noticed a little while ago that he had chewed or pecked right through it
last night and the tip of his beak has broken off 0.0 My friend hatched 3 turkeys about 4 weeks ago and the 2 bourbon reds have pecked the wire in his metal chick shelf thing so much that their top beaks are totally broken off like a cm past the bottom part of their beaks they r bloody and just look crazy u can see their tongues all the time! Will they heal and grow back?? How do they eat like that?? Mines not that bad at all but he did break the tip of it off! Anyway I tried my best to examine his tail and I couldn't really see any type of wound just looked like those 2 feathers were broken off and that's possibly where the blood was coming from and all the other chicks were peckin at that? I'm just really not sure I couldn't 100% tell! It's dried blood today tho its not that bright red! So that's a positive!
 
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