Turkey just died?

[ivan3]

pebblessix wrote: They cannot live together. We learned this the hard way.

What, if you wouldn't mind sharing, disease(s) did you have to contend with owing to commingling chooks with turks?​

 

[pebblessix]

From everything I have read, turkeys get sick much easier than chickens as a general rule. I cannot name the illness because we don't have a vet in the area to treat poultry and a necropsy costs nearly $400! When it first happened, we thought maybe it was an injury from some kind of fight because their was no sign of anything wrong. The turkeys would get some sort of lung infection. Males seemed to be more inclined to become ill, but females can catch it, too. They would get a thick mucous that seemed to suffocate them, almost like pnumonia. Sometimes there was cheesy looking gunk in with the mucous. Usually they would die with no warning at all. It was not uncommon for them to seem fine until just hours before death and then it was to late to help them. If we happened to notice one was having challenges breathing and treated them right away, we would have a good chance of saving him/her. My husband would give them penicillan, aueromycin sulfate and 24 hours later flagyl. We also would put electrolytes, aspirin, echinecea and childrens liquid mucinex in their water. (1 teaspoon of mucinex per gallon of water.) I have had to hand feed and water them for up to a week because they lost interest in food. As long as we caught it early enough, this would help. Recovery was very slow. We repeated the penicillan shots a couple of times for several weeks and we kept the mucinex, aspirin and echinecea in the water for about 3 weeks. The mucinex was critical. Without, they took much longer to recover. Whatever it was, it wiped out nearly half of my little flock before we figured out what to do. It is important to isolate them to avoid spreading. I know it seems like a lot of medicine, but it was a case of they would die without any help at all, so we may as well try everything. We really don't know which antibiotic was the one that did the job. We now keep our turkeys away from the chickens.

They can also catch blackhead from chickens.

I have found a great book which has been very useful. It is called Avoid the Vet . It is by Kelsey Publishing LTD, email: kelseybooks@kelsey,co.uk or www.kelsey.co.uk.

 

[houndit]

We had a broad breasted white Tom fall dead one morning in front of us. We were told that it was because they grow so fast that sometimes their spleen will detach from the rest of their body. We do not raise the Broad Breasted Whites anymore. I think that only happened to Broad Breasted Whites normally.

 

[Misty Oak Ranch]

If you raise the turkeys and chickens from birth together, they give each other immunity to the diseases carried by each other. Our turkey was raised from birth with chickens, and he is healthy and gets along fine with them. My great-grandfather raised turkeys for years, and he always kept a few chickens with them to both mother them and to pass immunity to them. Can't remember of any dying from disease.

 

[Vince]

Yes, Sam and my other birds have been together from day one. So that is why I was confused as to the cause of death. I am pretty sure it was from getting excited in the coop and him snapping his neck on something. I have noticed coyote prints on the outside walls of the coop. This probably caused quite a stir in the middle of the night.

 

[rarebreedeggs4u]

Quote:
This doesn't hold true for blackhead unfortunately. After loosing 1/2 of our poults, ages 6 week to 3 months, we had a necrospy done at the state lab and that's what we were dealing with.

 

[ccrawf]

2 things. We had a BBB tom that appeared to fall off his roost and break his neck when he was about 4 months old. Perhaps he was startled. He was a big old boy, too, so I can see parts of it.
Second thing. I have ALWAYS raised my turkeys and chickens together. For years, and have never had any problems with diseases or fighting or anything. Couldn’t say for sure if they actually passed immunity to each other or not. But think about this. You have to have black head disease to start with in order for one of them to pass it to the other. I obviously don’t have it, and am told that it is rather rare in this part of Missouri. And yes, all my birds came from the hatchery as day old chicks that we got at the same time. The only exception would be the 8 hens we kept over from last year. Even had several guinea hens with them. And this year I have 2 Emden geese as well, and they all get along fine.

 

[ivan3]

ccrawf wrote: You have to have black head disease to start with in order for one of them to pass it to the other. I obviously don’t have it, and am told that it is rather rare in this part of Missouri. And yes, all my birds came from the hatchery as day old chicks that we got at the same time. The only exception would be the 8 hens we kept over from last year. Even had several guinea hens with them. And this year I have 2 Emden geese as well, and they all get along fine.

Same here in Cent. MO. No info. on Blackhead outbreaks in area gleaned from the State Vet. or the MU Turkey Farm. Chicken to turkey transmission is the least of our concern owing to wild birds (and we usually play `host' to plenty of Wild Easterns). We've been pretty lucky for the better part of five years.

We keep our turks in chooks in separate runs, more concerned about accidental chook stomping when the toms get their blood up and are sparring with one another.

Only way to be sure about disease transmission is to construct an indoor aviary.

pebblessix wrote: I cannot name the illness because we don't have a vet in the area to treat poultry and a necropsy costs nearly $400!

Sorry to hear that. Thank you for the info. and congrats on the success that you did have.

ed:sp​

 

[chickenannie]

A friend had a tom that kept flying at a window repeatedly, then died. They think he injured himself that way.