Turkey deformities

[Mollja]

I have a pair 2 week old poults that I got that are royal palms and one that is a bronze/royal palm cross. One has an eye missing and the beak is miss aligned, but it is able to eat the crumbles, drink, and is growing at the same rate as a bronze/royal palm cross of the same hatch date +/- 3 days. Her name is Dizzy Lizzy, because she is constantly walking in circles with her eye to the outside.

The other palm royal, Half Pint, is half the size of the other two; and it seems to be eating and drinking fine. It has one eye that is there, but the eye slit is slightly, but noticable smaller than the other eye. I didn't notice this till the day after I got the poults.

I got them planning on them being pets. I like the coloring of the royal palms and like what I have heard about them, and these were her last palms. I am hoping for all females, so breeding is not an issue, and I realize that Dizzy may need to always be fed crumbles or possibly even have her food softened as she gets older, but she will definitely be a pet, and I felt a soft spot in my heart for her.

The breeder said in her 3 yeays of hatching turkey poults, and 10+ years of chicks, she has never had this happen and was not sure of what happened with Dizzy. Does anyone have any advice or knowledge about this?

 

[The Phantom]

Sadly some can just be defective.

 

[casportpony]

Welcome to BYC!
Can you get some liquid B vitamins and vitamin E? That's where I would start.

Walmart:

or feed store:

 

[R2elk]

I have a pair 2 week old poults that I got that are royal palms and one that is a bronze/royal palm cross. One has an eye missing and the beak is miss aligned, but it is able to eat the crumbles, drink, and is growing at the same rate as a bronze/royal palm cross of the same hatch date +/- 3 days. Her name is Dizzy Lizzy, because she is constantly walking in circles with her eye to the outside.

The other palm royal, Half Pint, is half the size of the other two; and it seems to be eating and drinking fine. It has one eye that is there, but the eye slit is slightly, but noticeably smaller than the other eye. I didn't notice this till the day after I got the poults.

I got them planning on them being pets. I like the coloring of the royal palms and like what I have heard about them, and these were her last palms. I am hoping for all females, so breeding is not an issue, and I realize that Dizzy may need to always be fed crumbles or possibly even have her food softened as she gets older, but she will definitely be a pet, and I felt a soft spot in my heart for her.

The breeder said in her 3 years of hatching turkey poults, and 10+ years of chicks, she has never had this happen and was not sure of what happened with Dizzy. Does anyone have any advice or knowledge about this?

While some types of defects can be caused by incubation conditions, most deformities such as you are experiencing are caused by breeding parents that are too closely related to each other which can bring out the hidden genes causing these defects.

 

[Redbrew]

July 2022 and I have two poults with almost exact same situation -the parents are COMPLETELY UNRELATED but cross beak can be congenital. I'd love to hear what happened with your poults. Ours are now four months old and are my daughter's pets (I gave the caveat that if they could eat on their own, they could be kept).

The most severe (missing eye and severe cross beak) is a jake, Ludwig, who has grown appropriately, though is a bit thin. He eats by laying his missing eye side down and scoops from right to left in the deep crumble, pellets, or whatever we are feeding. It's not perfect, as the dry food in his overly dry mouth is difficult to swallow. He drinks by dunking most of his head into the water but won't do so while eating, only after. He can fly up to high places, but cannot claim a perch in the chicken coop without help as balancing is more difficult. He is spitting, puffing, snood contracting, and displaying as expected.

Issues so far have been wet food getting built up on the edges of his beak and/or nostrils (unclear if he's really breathing through nostrils or not because he doesn't act bothered when clogged) with potential to sour there if not cleaned off. His tongue is taking the greatest suffering by becoming dry at the tip. He needs to be isolated to get his attention fully on filling the crop, but that's likely because he's a jake and they always fail to eat when others are around.

His hatch match is female and has only one good eye, with the other one being smaller, bluish/cloudy, and apparently completely blind. She can peck individual kernals, however, and so forage fairly well.

Pics are him as a chick (he would fall asleep very quickly) and at about two months old.

 

[R2elk]

I'd love to hear what happened with your poults.

The OP has not been on BYC since August of 2018.