Had to put a Turkey Down Today

[PalmRoyal]

Unfortunately, we had to put my pet turkey down today. He suffered from heat stroke a week ago and had another stroke last night, paralyzing his legs and wings. No other turkeys we have had this happen to them. It was blamed on weather switching from dry, lower 70*F to humid, higher 80*F over night and him being overweight.
Has this happened to anyone else before? We are all very heart broken that we had to lose Gerald. However, we believe that Gerald will soon be a dad to some eggs in a nest. He was an awesome tom that kept the barnyard in check.

This was the tom we had lost to heat stroke going for a walk in spring time (we tried to work on his weight a lot by teaching him to walk on a leash and take him on walks 2x a day).

 

[chooks4life]

The way he's walking looks stressed. He looks like he's just about ready to bolt or take to flight.

Why was it necessary to walk him on a leash? Do you live in suburbia and have no land of your own?

Stroke is pretty likely as a complication/result of cardiovascular disease for poultry not only fed cooked-only pellet/mash/crumble diets but also restricted from exercise.

I've seen another tom (which I borrowed for stud duties before realizing how decrepit his health was despite him being under a year old) who almost suffered heart attacks while trying to mate. This was because of a few reasons... His owner kept him in a cage which was about a meter and a half by a meter and a half square, with a dirt floor, where he lived permanently, with no greens and no exercise, as he did with his other stud turkeys when not breeding them. The females were allowed more room to roam, but not much. He always culled all males before a year old so wouldn't have known how badly his husbandry methods were harming them. I doubt they'd have lived much longer without heart attacks even if he let them reach their second year. Heart attacks are actually not uncommon among domestic poultry because of how we keep and feed them.

Animals need raw oils, exercise and raw foods to remain healthy, just like we do. Pellets etc only contain cooked oils and that renders most oils harmful, and the flexibility of capillaries etc depends in large extent on raw oils and exercise. Foraging chooks or turkeys fed pellets are far healthier than those only fed pellets. Lack of vascular flexibility causes blood pressure issues and in the heat, both humans and animals with blood pressure issues are quite likely to die or suffer as compared to those with healthy cardiovascular systems. This is because the body copes with heat by dilating the capillaries. Obviously not something easily done by an animal or human with inflexible capillaries, as they then rupture instead of flex as they are no longer elastic.

He was a Royal Palm unless I'm mistaken, so I would assume his issues were down to either genetics or husbandry, or perhaps a combination of both. I'm sorry for your loss.

Turkeys are primarily green feeders and long distance walkers by nature and with the exception of some very heavy meat breeds turkeys require these two things to remain truly healthy.

Best wishes.

 

[chooks4life]

I'll just add, I'm not trying to slander that guy for his lack of knowledge, his intentions were good and he loved his animals. They loved him back too, but that's not all we need, unfortunately.

 

[PalmRoyal]

Quote: We had to walk him on a leash regularly because it was the only way to get him to walk. Turkey canes did not work well for him. We have 100 acres of wooded area and farmed land, however, only a few acres of that they use (which is great for me). Since he could see the other tom near his hens, he was always concerned about them and would immediately just try to go right back to them. Even their night time lodging (between 10PM-8AM) is ten (or more) square feet per bird, as recommended by the 4-H handbooks. We leashed trained him from a few of our judge friends recommending us to walk him for him to lose some weight.

Quote: They are given free range over 100 acres of wooded and farm land. Their mixed feed that I feed them is one 50lbs bag of DuMor Gamebird Grower, one 50lbs bag of Black Oil Sunflower seeds, one 50lbs bag of whole oats, one 50lbs of whole corn, one 40lbs bag of alfalfa pellets, soybean meal (I mix this into the feed to make sure the protein is correct), then the tiniest bit of crushed oyster shells. The animals are given grains at 8AM, then at about 4PM, they are given their mixed feeds until they are locked up for the night (giving them six hours to consume all of their mixed feed that they want).

Quote: His were most likely genetics. I bought him from a man who bought him from a feather farm for $10. I believe the guy said that the farmer had over 200 Royal Palms at one point, then his barn burnt down and that is how he got him. I don't believe that a feather farm would have raised birds for the healthiest of genetics. Gerald has always been overweight, even when he was with the man I bought him from. Maybe it was an obesity gene possibly?

 

[chooks4life]

We had to walk him on a leash regularly because it was the only way to get him to walk. Turkey canes did not work well for him. We have 100 acres of wooded area and farmed land, however, only a few acres of that they use (which is great for me). Since he could see the other tom near his hens, he was always concerned about them and would immediately just try to go right back to them. Even their night time lodging (between 10PM-8AM) is ten (or more) square feet per bird, as recommended by the 4-H handbooks. We leashed trained him from a few of our judge friends recommending us to walk him for him to lose some weight.

So, if I'm understanding you, if left to free range he did not walk around at all? Did he just sit in front of a feeder? I know some chooks will do that but I haven't had that much experience with purebred turkeys so don't know if meat turkeys do the same.

One other way of interpreting what you're saying there is that you caged him or leashed him to stop him going back to the other turkeys? I would guess due to tom-on-tom aggression?

They are given free range over 100 acres of wooded and farm land. Their mixed feed that I feed them is one 50lbs bag of DuMor Gamebird Grower, one 50lbs bag of Black Oil Sunflower seeds, one 50lbs bag of whole oats, one 50lbs of whole corn, one 40lbs bag of alfalfa pellets, soybean meal (I mix this into the feed to make sure the protein is correct), then the tiniest bit of crushed oyster shells. The animals are given grains at 8AM, then at about 4PM, they are given their mixed feeds until they are locked up for the night (giving them six hours to consume all of their mixed feed that they want).

Sounds like a pretty good diet, reckon that won't be the cause then. The turkeys with heart/circulation issues I've known, as with the chooks with heart/circulation issues, were all raised on the cheapest crumbles/mashes/pellets, not on Gamebird growers and a mixed diet like you describe which seems to be one of the better options out there if you can't get them a complete natural diet which is beyond most people's means.

His were most likely genetics. I bought him from a man who bought him from a feather farm for $10. I believe the guy said that the farmer had over 200 Royal Palms at one point, then his barn burnt down and that is how he got him. I don't believe that a feather farm would have raised birds for the healthiest of genetics. Gerald has always been overweight, even when he was with the man I bought him from. Maybe it was an obesity gene possibly?

Yeah, sounds like it might be some endocrine imbalance quite possibly likely due to genetics. I've not heard of obesity issues with non-meat-breed turkeys. Perhaps he's not very purebred despite the phenotype and has some heftier breed mixed in somewhere.

Anyway, best wishes.

 

[PalmRoyal]

So, if I'm understanding you, if left to free range he did not walk around at all? Did he just sit in front of a feeder? I know some chooks will do that but I haven't had that much experience with purebred turkeys so don't know if meat turkeys do the same.

One other way of interpreting what you're saying there is that you caged him or leashed him to stop him going back to the other turkeys? I would guess due to tom-on-tom aggression?

No. He walked around while free ranging, however, he never did travel off far. He mostly just walked around following his hens. I had to leash him to try and get him a little more strenuous activity to try and lose some weight (as suggested by the judge I talked to, a few breeders and the 4-H advisors). If he wasn't leashed, he just wanted to race back to the pen and make sure the other tom was not bothering his hens. They were only fed once in the morning and then at 4PM. The rest of the time, they grazed. I will definably look into endocrine deficiency because it was very odd. Thank-you for all of the help!

 

[chooks4life]

So, the other tom is in the cage and he loitered around the outside of the cage, then? Sorry, still haven't got a clear pic of what's going on there. If you didn't have any females allowed to free range with him, or if he wasn't satisfied with only some of rather than all your hens, then for sure I can picture him failing to get enough exercise since mature toms basically gravitate to females and lack interest in just about everything else. Still, he must have been a greedy tom if he had females outside the cage and wouldn't settle for that.

From the sounds of it, he was probably carrying damage from his previous owner. If he was obese when you got him, his heart could already have been under strain or damaged (like us, some turkeys and chooks survive their first heart attacks) and if the diet the previous owner had him on failed to properly address his needs you could have already received him in a bad state.

It's very, very hard, practically impossible, to undo the damage of a bad start. You cannot put back in later what never went in there in the first place. It takes over a whole year to begin to get them into proper condition once they've spent their juvenile months growing under poor conditions on poor diets. It won't happen overnight or even within six months, there's a lot of low quality cells to replace since generally they've built themselves from low quality foods.

Being raised for feathers it's probably a good bet that he didn't have the best upbringing. I've spent years getting animals into good health after a bad start but they will always be sub-par healthwise compared to those you've raised yourself. I don't think strenuous exercise is necessarily the answer for obese animals that may have cardiovascular issues, and it does seem he had cardiovascular issues to me, but by the same token it's possible that there is nothing much you could have done. Cardiovascular damage can be permanent. Taking a year to heal, or never healing back to normal capacity, are both common outcomes. There's a genetic component to that too.

Anyway, best wishes with them. Good things you got some eggs fertilized by him, hope you get the results you're after from them. I would guess, all going well, you'll know a year from now whether it was a genetic issue or just environmental.

 

[chooks4life]

The comment about the strenuous exercise being not the solution for obese animals with cardiovascular damage doesn't apply to your situation, as I wouldn't class his walking as strenuous, lol. It was just a general comment. Birds can be difficult to get fit once they're unfit. I think this was possibly just a case of too much hidden damage, and no amount of speedwalking was going to fix it. My toms do little more than follow hens all day and they don't have heart issues so I reckon it was most likely just his upbringing or genetics that are at fault. Normal exercise should be all that is necessary and if they don't cope on that something else is wrong, but I would guess you know that anyway.

 

[roostersandhens]

So sorry for your loss