Just lost my second 10 week old poult, Now the last two are looking a little lethargic. Help!
Here's the situation: I have three adult (1.5yr old) turks (raised here, bought as day-olds) that run with my 4 chickens. This spring the hens obligingly raised a bunch of poults. 2 Moms and 10 poults were separated in their own coop until about 8 weeks old. I sold off 6 poults and kept 4 for christmas dinner. After about 8 weeks, I let them free range together in my yard with the tom and chickens, separating them every night and on days I can't free range so babies can be fed starter w/o having to feed it to the whole flock. Yes, the turkeys are everywhere the chickens are, and vice versa. The chooks have been here for five years, so there is no place in my small yard they havent "contaminated".
About a week ago, one of the poults died suddenly. It looked like there might have been some trauma (bruising) so I blamed it on flying into the walls in the middle of the night. Yesterday, another poult died, in retrospect, after having been lethargic for a day or so. I had just removed the hens (to conserve the starter feed) so i thought they were just acting weird b/c they missed mom. Wrong.
Now this AM, my observation of them heightened, i think the two remaining poults are acting a little lethargic - stopping to lie down and rest while foraging,and one tucked its head under to sleep standing right in the middle of the patio. They are still following the flock and appear to be eating. Havent noticed any droppings changes, but i'm going to go out and separate them to a dog crate so I can tell for sure. That will probably TOTALLY stress them out, though.
Any thoughts? I have never seen blackhead, and I did raise 9 turkeys here last year, so I doubt this is the problem, but can the disease show up randomly? There doesn't seem to be any respiratory distress, and they havent seemed to languish - just die suddenly. I plan to worm them tonight, as it has been almost a year for the chickens, never for the turks.
Looking for any ideas! Thanks!
Stephanie in Westerville OH
Here's the situation: I have three adult (1.5yr old) turks (raised here, bought as day-olds) that run with my 4 chickens. This spring the hens obligingly raised a bunch of poults. 2 Moms and 10 poults were separated in their own coop until about 8 weeks old. I sold off 6 poults and kept 4 for christmas dinner. After about 8 weeks, I let them free range together in my yard with the tom and chickens, separating them every night and on days I can't free range so babies can be fed starter w/o having to feed it to the whole flock. Yes, the turkeys are everywhere the chickens are, and vice versa. The chooks have been here for five years, so there is no place in my small yard they havent "contaminated".
About a week ago, one of the poults died suddenly. It looked like there might have been some trauma (bruising) so I blamed it on flying into the walls in the middle of the night. Yesterday, another poult died, in retrospect, after having been lethargic for a day or so. I had just removed the hens (to conserve the starter feed) so i thought they were just acting weird b/c they missed mom. Wrong.
Now this AM, my observation of them heightened, i think the two remaining poults are acting a little lethargic - stopping to lie down and rest while foraging,and one tucked its head under to sleep standing right in the middle of the patio. They are still following the flock and appear to be eating. Havent noticed any droppings changes, but i'm going to go out and separate them to a dog crate so I can tell for sure. That will probably TOTALLY stress them out, though.
Any thoughts? I have never seen blackhead, and I did raise 9 turkeys here last year, so I doubt this is the problem, but can the disease show up randomly? There doesn't seem to be any respiratory distress, and they havent seemed to languish - just die suddenly. I plan to worm them tonight, as it has been almost a year for the chickens, never for the turks.
Looking for any ideas! Thanks!
Stephanie in Westerville OH
