Sick turkey baby

[tsbonin]

First time to post but hoped someone knew what else I can do to help my new turkey baby. Lost one turkey already and this one is about to die. Just got both but they had a bad start from feed store mishandling (both soaking wet in air conditioned store). Both turkeys were wet and weak. Had been sent to someone else by mistake and then returned to store for me. One died first night in water dish. This one was sick this am. Have given it sugar water through dropper and she came to for a little while but is now getting weaker again. She may have pasty butt starting also. Unable to stand well, falls over. Weak neck and chirping comes and goes, mostly gone now. Have secluded in a room with heat. She is a bronze about 4 to 6 days old. We have always had wonderful success w/turkeys so this has been horrible. Our success rate on chicks and turkeys this year has been 100% before this. Any ideas how we can save her?

 

[Denninmi]

Sorry about that -- it's a shame they didn't know better at the feed store. I would certainly tell them what happened and at the least request a refund or replacement. They should know better than chill baby birds, especially turkeys which are know to be difficult anyway.

I think that the only thing you can do at this point is try to keep the bird very warm, hydrated with an electolyte solution like gatorade or pedialyte (there is a bird one called ornalyte, but its the same basic thing), and give it a strong dose of antibiotics (tetracycline and penicillin) if you have any. I'm afraid the odds of saving it are probably really low. You could try force feeding it with a slurry of boiled egg, a pinch of sugar or honey, a little bit of vegetable oil, and enough water to mix it all into a thin paste in a blender or food processor, IF the bird is alert enough to tolerate it. At this point, I'd say you would probably be doing it more harm than good to try this, but if it lives through the night and improves a little you could try this.

 

[tsbonin]

Thank you for answering my post Denninmi. I lost this poor girl during the night. She had improved at one point yesterday then just went down fast. Couldn't believe she lived as long as she did. I have never had problems w/this feed store in the past but still believe I may find another chicken/turkey source. This was so uncalled for. Thank you again.

 

[Denninmi]

I'm sorry about that. It's amazing how much we can get emotionally invested in these little birds.