We learned a lot today.
About 10 days ago we got 5 8 week old poults from neighbours. We have never had turkeys before and did what we could to learn how to take good care of them. Two had mozzie bites when we got them. I knew that was not good but they seemed to be coping. However, the wounds became infected. One was strutting his stuff just fine but the other got slow and started to limp from a foot infection. The active one had a bite under each eye and one one the leg.
My wife went to have a chat with the vet and he came straight over. He injected all five with antibiotics. Two keeled over immediately and I thought they were dead. He said that they were reacting to the injections and gave them all another one to counter the shock. All five perked up and looked fine. Tonight, the weakest two are kept separated from the others just in case there's trouble from the fitter ones. The vet gives them only a 50% chance of survival. If they do survive, they can have the delayed mosquito injections.
He gave us this advice. Our poults were not injected against mosquito bites before we had them. Buy turkeys that are almost old enough to lay. That avoids later problems from earlier bites. When the birds lay, inject the poults against mosquito bites after 7 days and repeat that annually. Keep poults under netting until two weeks after the injections. After that, the mosquitoes won't bother them. He added that mozzies are the only real problem here for turkeys but the infection can kill poults. Quite simple when you know how.
I'm very upset about this. I trusted our neighbours to have done the right thing but they did nothing for the welfare of the poults. We have told them what the vet said but they just laughed it off as unimportant. We won't let this happen to us again. In just a few days we have come to be very fond of our babies and have got to know their personalities. Now they are at risk because of a cheap-skate idiot. Fingers crossed that they survive. We now have from the vet details of professionals who can supply our next batch.
As a matter of interest, the vet's bill for 10 injections, TLC, advice and an hour of his time was 100 baht (about $3.50)! His son who came along got some ice cream money! At those prices there's no excuse for not taking good care of the babies!
About 10 days ago we got 5 8 week old poults from neighbours. We have never had turkeys before and did what we could to learn how to take good care of them. Two had mozzie bites when we got them. I knew that was not good but they seemed to be coping. However, the wounds became infected. One was strutting his stuff just fine but the other got slow and started to limp from a foot infection. The active one had a bite under each eye and one one the leg.
My wife went to have a chat with the vet and he came straight over. He injected all five with antibiotics. Two keeled over immediately and I thought they were dead. He said that they were reacting to the injections and gave them all another one to counter the shock. All five perked up and looked fine. Tonight, the weakest two are kept separated from the others just in case there's trouble from the fitter ones. The vet gives them only a 50% chance of survival. If they do survive, they can have the delayed mosquito injections.
He gave us this advice. Our poults were not injected against mosquito bites before we had them. Buy turkeys that are almost old enough to lay. That avoids later problems from earlier bites. When the birds lay, inject the poults against mosquito bites after 7 days and repeat that annually. Keep poults under netting until two weeks after the injections. After that, the mosquitoes won't bother them. He added that mozzies are the only real problem here for turkeys but the infection can kill poults. Quite simple when you know how.
I'm very upset about this. I trusted our neighbours to have done the right thing but they did nothing for the welfare of the poults. We have told them what the vet said but they just laughed it off as unimportant. We won't let this happen to us again. In just a few days we have come to be very fond of our babies and have got to know their personalities. Now they are at risk because of a cheap-skate idiot. Fingers crossed that they survive. We now have from the vet details of professionals who can supply our next batch.
As a matter of interest, the vet's bill for 10 injections, TLC, advice and an hour of his time was 100 baht (about $3.50)! His son who came along got some ice cream money! At those prices there's no excuse for not taking good care of the babies!
