dead poults potential foul play

[SmokingPistol]

I found 3 dead poults today in my stock tank brooder. I have other poults in there so when I found these 3 they had been walked on quite a bit. I see no obvious signs of death but I'm suspecting foul play. How can I tell if they have broken necks?
Thank you!

 

[Mykee]

Who/what else may have access to the brooder? I'm assuming water, heat, food, etc. is not an issue. How old are the poults? How many others do you have?

 

[SmokingPistol]

They are 2 week old bourbon reds and they were in my garage with no access to animal predators. There were 13 of them together and they have been very healthy and active.

 

[Mykee]

What about access to human "predators?" Were the dead poults all together?

 

[SmokingPistol]

The door of the garage was not locked so yes people could have had access. Two of the poults were right next to each other and the third was right around the feeder from them. Im suspicious it was a human due to some recent unexplained activity with our other livestock. On the other hand turkeys die from unknown causes naturally. Some even say poults are suicidal so I'm simply skeptical.

 

[kuntrygirl]

Sounds like human predators to me.

 

[furbabymum]

They just die. I bought 5 this year and only 1 is still alive. All just like you say. Chickens haven't dropped dead at all but 4 turkeys just died mysteriously. Even when they were in the house they died.

 

[furbabymum]

I should clarify that I had 20 chicks and 5 turkey poults all in together. No chick deaths but 4 poult deaths. The remaining turkey is doing well though. My husband has vowed (this being our 2nd year of turkeys just dying) that we will never buy turkeys again. They seem shockingly fragile to me.

 

[thepiggs]

I am by no means and expert on turkeys, as this is our first year with them, but I have had no problems with my turkeys. Mine have all lived with chicks at first, with the last of the turkeys still in with chicks. The others are all out free ranging it. I had absolutely NO problems with the poults dying.
Ours have all been healthy and the youngest are telling me it's time to graduate to outdoors life.
Mine have been eating non-medicated food, as I understand they should NEVER be fed medicated food. They get the same chick feed that the chicks eat. I am not sure what the problem is with the medicated food, but they shouldn't have it. This is the only think that I can think of that could be a problem for you. Did you feed the poults medicated food? If so, stop feeding to them.
We started out with six bronze, then five royal palms and a slate, then three each of slate and red bourbon. No problems with any of them with food or living with chickens or geese outside.
If medicated food isn't the problem, maybe it is a problem with the eggs the hatchery is using. If you still would like to try turkeys next year, try getting them from a different source that use eggs from a different supplier and see how it goes.
Since we have had no problems with our birds I don't have any other thoughts for you, except to not give up. They have been a joy to raise from just hatched to large birds with definite personalities and good entertainment...and soon to be dinners....at least some of them.