Turkey dying :(

[star819]

So we've had our turkey about 5 months now. Everything was great, she (I believe) was getting nice and strong and big. We then found out a little too late that our chickens have been beating her up. She is now pretty lifeless. She's eating and drinking, but won't walk or do much of anything other then open her wings when I try to pick her up. It looks like they got her good under the tail area as there is an open wound there, along with on the inside of one of her wings. I gave her a bath and cleaned up the wounds and have her completely separate now from the other chickens. I'm not sure she will make it through the night .

Is there anything else I can do for her? My BF was also wondering if it's safe to butcher and eat her.

 

[carrierose]

I had the same problem with my chickens pecking a large hole under the tail of my tom turkey this summer. I separated him from everyone else, cleaned up the wound & medicated it. After it had healed for a couple weeks I butchered him & the meat was fine. Of course, I tossed his tail in the trash instead of eating it simply because the flies had gotten in the wound & it was full of maggots. Neosporin worked great to heal his wound after all the maggots had been cleaned out.

 

[star819]

Thanks for the info. I caught it when the wound was fresh and put tons of A&D on the area after cleaning it out with some peroxide, it didn't look like there were any bugs there but I'll keep checking. She was alive this morning when we checked on her even though it was pretty cold last night. So if she gets better and makes it then we wanted to let her get bigger. I made a bed of straw for her yesterday and I'll be putting a blanket there for her tonight.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Turkeys can heal pretty well from wounds if they don't initially die of shock. Only you can tell if she too far damaged or not. If nothing vital is damaged than I would let her go, otherwise I would butcher her if she appears to be suffering or if that's what you were going to do anyways. It's best not to keep turkeys and chickens together.

 

[star819]

Well she wound up dying this afternoon, so looks like we may have missed the window either way. I can't believe 4 chickens were able to do that to a turkey 3x their size. They were only a few months apart age wise too. Now I know I can't add anything else in with them, I'll have to build another area for future livestock.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Sorry to hear that. Beaks can do lots of damage. I experienced it the other way around, I had some turkeys kill a chicken, so I always keep them separately now.