my 10 week old turkey poult died yesterday

[bargain]

I am so distraught. He was doing very well. I had him in a pen outside next to mom and dad. They loved him and did not hurt him. He had been in the pen about 2 weeks. Was eating and drinking and happy. He had a huge pen with access to water food and grass. Mom and Dad are okay. Any ideas what I did wrong. When I went to feed him yesterday morning, he was laying down barely breathing. I checked for wounds, etc. I'm heart broken. I tried to give him a few drops of water he would drink but then within about 1 hour he was dead. He was our first turkey born on the farm. I have more little turkeys coming from my broke down incubator today. I just don't want to repeat my mistake. Please help.

 

[gypsygirl1421]

What part of the country are you in? It sounds like this was something that happened fast and he had respiratory issues. I have heard of chickens dying of West Nile Virus and that usually comes with respiratory distress but I am not sure if turkeys get it. You could possibly send him to Cornell U, they do necropsys for a fee and can let you know what happened. Hopefully someone comes along that knows more than I do, I just got into turkeys myself and I have heard people tell me they are mean but my blues are so sweet. I am so sorry for your loss, you'd think at that age he would be in the clear.

 

[warcard]

We had this problem with our babies last year. Turkeys can be very fragile as youths. What helped us alot was worming with Ivermectin pour-on (Eprinex), we had sent a couple bodies off for necropsy and they came back with gapeworms and a bunch of other stuff, but we treated for the gapeworms and did much better. I figure the wormer killed off gapeworms and any other worms and without the worms they were better able to combat other problems.

Try this website:
http://shilala.homestead.com/ivomec.html

The Eprinex comes in a big bottle, but you are going to need a very small syringe for the babies (around 1cc/22lbs, so you end up dosing with parts of a cc). You might also use it on the bigger birds (if you can weigh them

) just to help rid to yard of worms.

Worm as soon as they hit dirt! If this doesn't seem to help you might consider a course of antibiotic, if you catch a problem in time.

 

[MandyH]

Turkey poults can, will and do die all of a sudden for no apparent reason. They are the hardest bird we have that we raise. Sometimes they do just die.

 

[lengel]

We had this problem with a guinea hen keet last year. One just dropped an hour after showing distress. Young animals can just do that sometimes.

 

[DuckyBoys]

I had no idea turkeys were so hard to raise. I was thinking of having my son do a turkey project next year but now maybe not.

Sorry about your baby.

 

[warcard]

The best thing to do is keep them off dirt for as long as you can. Once they hit dirt, worm them as I stated above, and watch them like a hawk with antibiotics at the ready at least for the first couple months.

 

[SundownWaterfowl]

im so sorry!