Sadie (turkey) has a swollen head

Rcornerranch

Songster
Sep 23, 2020
124
287
141
Lincoln County, MO, USA
Sadie’s head is swollen. She has no eye or sinus discharge. Breathing is normal. It’s especially swollen on her left side. Her eyelid is stretched with the swelling. She can still blink. Her snood is also very swollen and is usually a very small size. Today it’s sticking right out. The area at the corner of her mouth looks very swollen, too. I can’t find any punctures. You can see she IS missing a chunk of feathers in this photo a bit above her wing area. I couldn’t find any damage to the skin. She is acting ok. I’m hoping it isn’t a snake bite! Horsefly bite or got stung by something maybe? Is there anything I can do for her? While looking her over I did find two abscesses, with that earwax-like puss birds get, from when she was attacked on her nest two months ago. I thought they were like large pimples where her tail feathers were plucked out during the fight. But they are a little deeper than that. I tried to get a lot of the waxy stuff out and flushed it with hydrogen peroxide. I could tell she’d had enough. I put her back in her pen with the Tom. Anything else I can do for the abscessed areas?
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Here’s the more normal side of her face. She was being very noncooperative about picture time. The swelling on the bad side is about the same. It’s been about 3 hours since I first noticed her head’s swelling.
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It’s a bit more swollen today. I’m worried about her. No sneezing or discharge. Just swelling and the two infected areas. Could the infected site be causing head swelling??? I’m wondering if wasps might be going in her nesting igloo and stinging her face. Anyone with advice about what to do to help her?
 
@R2elk is also another member who knows turkeys. Sometimes when a sting is suspected some use benadryl one time to see if it helps the swelling. How much does she weigh? I know that MG can cause swelling of the face, and there is a virus called swollen head syndrome in turkeys, but it is rare in the US. Have you ever had a respiratory disease, or used Tylan or tylosin?
 
She is certainly not feeling well. Now that it’s just me and her in the kitchen, she’s being too calm and sleepy. She feels hot to the touch. Her calls are kinda of muffled sounding. Here’s some photos I just took. I’m including a picture of the dark hard scales on her legs in case that’s a sign of something.
 
Do you have any antibiotics? Tylosin, Baytril, oxytetracycline, Denagard, and doxycycline are some used for MG. Do you have a farm vet who could help?
 
She is doing a lot of swallowing. She’s still pretty active. I have tetroxy hca-280 powder a vet gave us when two turkeys were sick, but it turned out they had eaten coins…It’s something you mix into water and they drink the antibiotic that way. A rooster had baytril injections when he had a respiratory infection. Vet told us it could be mg, but he also had fowl pox. It’s been a year since then. She is the only turkey with symptoms. Is there any possibility the infection by her tail could be causing head swelling?
 

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