Hope This Saves A Turkey From Blackhead

[MicheleR]

Kathy, you seem really knowledgeable, I am new to BYC and my own flock. As posted, we have a few egg layers and I purchased what I thought were 5 guinea hens because we are clearing some pretty dense brush and the ticks were terrible. We had read GH's will do a number on all things that crawl, slither or bite. As the little ones began to grow, one stood head and shoulders above the rest and it turns out it is a turkey. WOW, what a cutie and "he's" my little buddy now. I would be heartbroken if he caught blackhead from my egg layers. As I have tried to keep them separate, however everyone is so curious about each other (or food) and I often see them on the same ground. I worry all the time. Your post with the fish parasite treatment is great thanks. I'll just keep a close eye on the droppings, but is there anything else I can do as a preventative? Thanks. M

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC!

One of the things I do is weigh them... my poults are weighed at hatch, then every week or two until they are much larger. One of the first signs they are sick is no weight gain or weight loss. Young, healthy fowl should make daily gains, so if I don't see proper gains, I know they aren't feeling well and can start treatment for whatever I think might be making them sick.

Another thing you can do is frequent worming with a wormer that targets the cecal worm.

-Kathy

 

[melanie]

I out a lot of cayenne powder in the feed, and in the water.

 

[ShewmanFarm]

How much ceyanne do u feed at a time? I just lost my turkey last night i think because of Blackhead and I have another Turkey that seems fine so want to dose it with the ceyanne tonight.

 

[Deej211]

THANK YOU!!!!!!! this did save my turkey! noticed curry powder coloured poops and turkey was lethargic about 3 days later. (i had fed curried veg leftovers so thought it was that, thanks to google i realised it was blackhead) my 2 turkeys do free range with my chooks when they are out. I started putting chilli powder in the feed (turkeys and chook feed) and his poop is solid again and nearly pure white where its meant to be. yay! i might add that i used a packet of chilli powder just from the spice aisle in shopping centre. worked fine. Thanks so much! i will be continueing to add it to all there feed in future.

 

[HeritageGoose13]

Wow this is really good information to know. I knew cayenne was good for certain things but wouldn't have thought of blackhead.

As a bonus, putting cayenne in their feed makes it spicy so rodents won't try and eat it.

 

[Ladyeviv]

Metronidazole is frequently given to dogs for unexplained diarrhea and for diarrhea from some parasites (I had a couple foster dogs from a hoarding situation come to me with giardia). I don't know if you could get just any vet to prescribe this medication without seeing the patient (especially since most dog and cat vets don't "do" farm animals), but it may be available online without a prescription for "future reference". Might be worth looking into as part of your first aid kit for whichever animals it's appropriate for.

 

[casportpony]

Metronidazole is frequently given to dogs for unexplained diarrhea and for diarrhea from some parasites (I had a couple foster dogs from a hoarding situation come to me with giardia). I don't know if you could get just any vet to prescribe this medication without seeing the patient (especially since most dog and cat vets don't "do" farm animals), but it may be available online without a prescription for "future reference". Might be worth looking into as part of your first aid kit for whichever animals it's appropriate for.

Welcome to BYC!

One can purchase metronidazole OTC as Fish-Zole, Aqua-Zole, API General Cure and Meditrich.

-Kathy

 

[2mnypets]

I thought I would add a couple of things to this thread. I have found an enormous amount of awesome information here, although I will admit that I did not read all 16 pages. I called my vet friend because I'm afraid we are starting on this journey with one of our turkeys. Besides what she was able to tell me below , she said animals fed high protein, high carbohydrate diets showed no ill effects of cayenne or capsicum toxicity, and it actually influenced gut retention times. She went on to say that earthworms also carry histomonosis.

I did find a good article on the net about this disease, but it is lengthy.
http://ps.oxfordjournals.org/content/85/6/1008.full.pdf

This next article talks about Tiamulin as an alternative medication that has been found to decrease mortality of turkeys. It says that high levels of the medication were found concentrated in the liver where it was primarily metabolized.
http://www.octagon-services.co.uk/articles/poultry/histomonosis.pdf

This website states that these drugs are FDA approved for blackhead: Carosep, Acidified Copper Sulfate, and Histostat-50. http://www.poultrysupplies.com/index_files/Page1190.htm

So first off Metronidazole or Fish Zole that everyone has been talking about is also known as Flagyl in human pharmacological terms. It is the antibiotic doctors prescribe first for Colostridium Difficile due to the increase of VRE (Vancomycin Resistant Enterococci). Metronidazole is only effective against anaerobic (non-oxygen) bacterial infections in humans because the presence of oxygen will inhibit the nitrogen-reduction process that is crucial to the drug's mechanism of action. In animals after the drug enters the body and finds a susceptible organism, it enters the pathogens cell. The cell is first reduced and then the Metronidazole binds to the pathogens DNA, causing loss of the helical structure (replication), strand breakage (transcription), and impairment of DNA function (repair process). Only susceptible organisms (bacteria and protozoa) appear to be capable of metabolizing the drug.

Birds do not detect capsaicin the constituent in peppers and in this case cayenne pepper. Although birds possess the TRVP1 receptor in their nerve cells, it is not activated by capsaicin as it is in mammals (this is what we humans recognize as "this pepper is STINKING HOT"). Liver activity has been shown to be responsible for conversion of capsaicin to the reactive phenoxy radical, which in turn can bind thereby inactivating certain enzymes in the Histomonas meleagridis DNA structure . This mechanism may be responsible for the inhibition of further activation, and the reported protective activity of capsaicin against some chemical, biological carcinogens and mutagens are currently being looked at.

Hope this helps someone. Have a great day everyone!

 

[Shroppy]

So.. we found one of our White Holland Turkeys (they are now a year old) dead on the nest a couple of days ago. Our small flock has their own 1.5 acre patch of open woodland and meadow area where the chickens can't reach. although prior to last October, they did share the same ground. None of them had appeared sick, so it was a real shock to find her. The first thing was that there was no sign of yellow poo anywhere.

This girl's crop was empty and she felt "sloshy" when we moved her for necropsy. She had a cyanotic tinge
to her skin.

This is what we found and obviously it was Blackhead. There was fluid in the body cavity and the liver was fragile and had numerous necrotic lesions. I had been giving them 1 drop of GSE per 10 lbs weight, but that is a pretty low level maintenance dose for general health.

As of today, the others look fine, but I HAVE started them all on Cayenne Pepper. I found a 5 lb bag for $12. Also, Garlic Powder, and Cinnamon Powder, with Lemon Oil, after finding THIS.. yes, I am a stickler for evidence-based research!

Efficacy of a herbal product against Histomonas meleagridis after experimental infection of turkey poults.
Hafez HM1, Hauck R.
Mortality was 20% in Group 1 and 50% in Group 2. There were no deaths in Group 3. DNA of histomonads was detected in all examined caeca and livers of the dead birds, but was not detected in any examined organ of the surviving birds of all groups. There was no noticeable difference in the lesion scores of the dead birds between the groups. The surviving birds of all groups did not show lesions post mortem. Since all effective prophylactic and therapeutic drugs against histomoniasis were banned in the EU, under given conditions the investigated herbal product seems to be an effective alternative for the reduction of mortality in turkeys caused by histomoniasis.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17036753

Using Cinnamon in Poultry Feed
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cinn...de-poultry-dr-sekhar-basak?forceNoSplash=true

I also have a bag of Neem Leaf powder here, and plan on adding just a little to every feed for turkeys AND chickens.

Effect of treatment with Neem (Azadirachta indica) compared with Baycox drug on the caecum of chicken experimentally infected with Eimeria tenella.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20503590


I think we can all learn a lot too from the "Third World" poultry-raising practices, where Big Pharma's "drugs" are often unaffordable.

Efficacy of Some Herbal Feed Additives on Performance and Control of Cecal Coccidiosis in Broilers (Neem and Artemisis - Wormwood) Maha M. Hadya, M.M. Zakib, ,
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212670812001984

Anyway, I WILL report back if any issues develop! I hope that this post helps someone.