I'm wondering if anyone has experienced this...
Back in 2008, I had an issue with my poults getting sick and dying off before two weeks of age. I'm not sure what made me think it, but I suspected that the game starter feed that I was giving them were making them sick, so I stopped giving it to them. The ones that weren't too affected by it recovered, and I stopped losing poults. I think later on I ended up buying a new bag and feeding it again, but no one got sick from it. I just assumed that the feed was tainted with some kind of toxic mold or something, since I had heard of that kind of thing happening.
Then I heard of avian encephalomyelitis and suspected that maybe that's what they'd had all along, because the symptoms were pretty much dead on. But really, that didn't add up, since the symptoms had stopped when they had stopped eating the feed, so I let it go.
Flash forward to this past month, when I decided that I wanted to hatch out more turkeys since I'm down to two turkey hens. I bought a new bag of game bird starter, the same brand from 2008, and fed it to my poults. Within 2 weeks of hatching, they started getting sick and dying. Since it had been over 5 years ago that it had happened, memory was kind of foggy about what had happened until I found my old posts here on BYC. This time, I was scared to death that it was AE, but again it didn't make sense as I haven't had any new birds on my place in about 2 years, and NONE of the outside chicks were sick and dying. (I have so many mutt chicks running around outside, it ain't funny!) The poults had only been inside, so I figured that the only way they could have gotten it was through transmission in the egg, but that didn't make sense either, since again, no one has been been sick, and the turkey hens have been laying just fine. Suspicion fell back onto the feed.
I had one lone poult hatch just as the others were dying off, so I took it off the game bird starter and started giving it chick starter instead. The other poults should have infected the new hatch or it should have been infected from birth, so if it was disease, it would have about two weeks to live. Here it is nearly 3 weeks later, and the last poult is still alive and thriving, thinking I'm Momma and perfectly healthy.
I'm both mad and disgusted that I lost 9 poults completely unnecessarily.
I know the chick starter doesn't have the proper amount of protein, but at least I know that whatever is in it isn't killing my poor baby.
The medication in the game bird feeder is Amprolium, 113.5 g/ton. I don't know if this is a standard amount, or if it's even the culprit. Is there anything else that anyone could think of that could cause sever neurological effects? I have the tag off the bag, if anyone wants to know the ingredients.
Back in 2008, I had an issue with my poults getting sick and dying off before two weeks of age. I'm not sure what made me think it, but I suspected that the game starter feed that I was giving them were making them sick, so I stopped giving it to them. The ones that weren't too affected by it recovered, and I stopped losing poults. I think later on I ended up buying a new bag and feeding it again, but no one got sick from it. I just assumed that the feed was tainted with some kind of toxic mold or something, since I had heard of that kind of thing happening.
Then I heard of avian encephalomyelitis and suspected that maybe that's what they'd had all along, because the symptoms were pretty much dead on. But really, that didn't add up, since the symptoms had stopped when they had stopped eating the feed, so I let it go.
Flash forward to this past month, when I decided that I wanted to hatch out more turkeys since I'm down to two turkey hens. I bought a new bag of game bird starter, the same brand from 2008, and fed it to my poults. Within 2 weeks of hatching, they started getting sick and dying. Since it had been over 5 years ago that it had happened, memory was kind of foggy about what had happened until I found my old posts here on BYC. This time, I was scared to death that it was AE, but again it didn't make sense as I haven't had any new birds on my place in about 2 years, and NONE of the outside chicks were sick and dying. (I have so many mutt chicks running around outside, it ain't funny!) The poults had only been inside, so I figured that the only way they could have gotten it was through transmission in the egg, but that didn't make sense either, since again, no one has been been sick, and the turkey hens have been laying just fine. Suspicion fell back onto the feed.
I had one lone poult hatch just as the others were dying off, so I took it off the game bird starter and started giving it chick starter instead. The other poults should have infected the new hatch or it should have been infected from birth, so if it was disease, it would have about two weeks to live. Here it is nearly 3 weeks later, and the last poult is still alive and thriving, thinking I'm Momma and perfectly healthy.
I'm both mad and disgusted that I lost 9 poults completely unnecessarily.
I know the chick starter doesn't have the proper amount of protein, but at least I know that whatever is in it isn't killing my poor baby.
The medication in the game bird feeder is Amprolium, 113.5 g/ton. I don't know if this is a standard amount, or if it's even the culprit. Is there anything else that anyone could think of that could cause sever neurological effects? I have the tag off the bag, if anyone wants to know the ingredients.
