Turkey Blackhead - any experience?

[Jocasta]

Hiya. I got it into my head that I want to raise my own Christmas turkey this year. I've got the incubator issue sorted (finally) and have ordered my eggs. Here's the problem:

Up until October, my chickens free ranged over the entire garden. They totally trashed it so I penned them up. They've now got about 10m2 of outdoor space which suits them well (although they do still give me the evil eye when I'm gardening out there

)

While reading up on turkey care, I inadvertently stumbled across "blackhead" and apparently you mustn't keep turkeys and chickens together as chicken worm eggs incubate a nasty parasite that if ingested by a turkey, is always fatal. Apparently there is no treatment for this disease, called Blackhead. The parasite can live in worm eggs for up to four years so therefore you shouldn't keep turkeys on land that's had chickens on it in the last four years. I read briefly about "quicklime" dusting runs etc if there's an outbreak of blackhead to reduce contamination. Does this mean that if I dust the land I've got in mind for the turkeys with quicklime, that they'll be ok? I don't worm my chickens nearly often enough so I can't even rest assured that they wouldn't have been pooping out worm eggs. But then there's no guarantee that they'll have ingested this parasite either...

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

Jo x

 

[spish]

firstly contact your local enviromental people and ask if you have problemw with blackhead in your area. they should be able to say if it is an at risk area or not.

secondly a heck of a lot of people keep turkeys with chickens without any problem whatsoever.
but....there is always the risk...!



what you really wanna do (or what i did was.......) raise the turkey poults inside/off the ground until they are between 16 and 20 weeks of age. raised coops/keeping them on wire is good....just avoid contact with the ground until their immune system is developed enough.

i have blackhead in my area so had to be extra careful. i raised my poults on medicated feed (against cocci and blackhead) until 12 weeks....then switched unmedicated feed, but still kept them poults off the dirt. when they go to big for the brooder i moved them into the barn (concrete floors)..then moved them out at 19 weeks old...touch wood all is well (they are now 8 months)



my first encouter with raising poults was a disaster. it started well but i put them to ground to early (12 weeks) i lost the whole flock (12 poults) to blackhead within 2 weeks.............

 

[Jocasta]

Thanks so much for your response. Keeping them indoors isn't really an option as I just don't have the facillities. "Back yard chickens" definitely applies to me! I live in a pretty urban setting so no barns to speak of. Have you ever heard of the quick lime thing? I'm clasping onto it tightly as a little grain of hope lol. Failing that, I'm just going to have to try my luck and hope like heck that there's no Histomonas meleagridis present on the ground

Apparently there's a preventative medication you can give them in their feed? Have you got any info on that?

I feel really cheeky, all I've done is ask for help - I'm often giving advice out too but not so much on poultry keeping as I'm just a newbie!

 

[spish]

ive heard of spreading the lime but never done it myself. first try and find out if you have blackhead in your area before pannicing

you could always make a raised coop about a foot of the ground so the turkey poults dont touch the ground, IF you have a blackhead problem.


in regards to the medicated feed, i used that myself but dont know exactly what was in it.....i just know it was against cocci and blackhead. i can find the label info for you but its all in dutch

 

[Jocasta]

Haha, thank you! I've got my turkey's dead and burned before I've even had the eggs delivered! Haha! I'll do some local research first, promise

 

[spish]

not sure if you know but we've got a fab turkey forum right here on byc
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewforum.php?id=20

loads of fantastic advice and info there and some people who know their turkey stuff

 

[Jocasta]

ooo, thank you very much!!! I'll pop over to have a gander