Turkey Talk for 2014

[casportpony]

Ok, so we have a huge problem at out house right now and I'm starting to freak. We had 12 Turkeys, 5RP from a hatchery and 7 sweetgrass we hatched from local eggs. They roam the yard during the day and are in a large enclosure with a few chickens at night. They are dropping like flies. I don't give them straight turkey feed, but mix a bag of high protein with a bag of layer and a bag of whoop'em which is a bad of corn, sunflower seeds, .... They seem to go to bed fine and when they wake up, 1 seems to be lethargic and then dies by nightfall. About 1 - 2 per week. Now there is another this morning and we will be down to 4. They are about 10 - 12 Weeks old. The only thing I have noticed (besides, they don't eat much feed, just whatever they can chase down outside) is that they dig in the compost bun. It had food in it, along with grass clipping and the litter I ship out of the bins, plus the dead birds we get. WE Put everything in a large pile outback.

Any ideas why they are dying? Any suggestions at all? We try and force feed them a bit of wet feed, but it hadn't saved any of them. They become lethargic and they just sit and don't walk, almost like they just sit down to die.

Necropsies on food animals are free in Tennessee, so I'd get one done for sure. As for what's killing them, it sure could be blackhead.

Kord Animal Disease Diagnostic Laboratory - Kord Animal Health Diagnostic Laboratory
TN Dept of Agriculture
436 Hogan Road
Nashville, Tennessee 37220
Phone: 615-837-5294 Fax 615-837-5250
http://www.tn.gov/agriculture/publications/labguide/laboratoryguide.pdf

This is how I send one to the lab in CA:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/799747/how-to-send-a-bird-for-a-necropsy-pictures

-Kathy

 

[Wasson6Pack]

I wondered about the bdead bird thing. We didn't know what to do with them, and thought to put it in that pile. We haven't done anything with the product of the pile because it has only been going for about 4 months. Does everyone else just bury their dead.

I will check into sending them in and read up on blackhead to see the symptoms.

Thank you, at least it is a place to start.

 

[casportpony]

@Wasson6Pack The minimum effective treatment for blackhead is metronidazole 30mg/kg once a day for five days, but I have read posts where vets have prescribed up to 60mg/kg *twice* a day for five days. In addition to that, you will also need to de-worm with Safeguard at 50mg/kg by mouth once and repeat in ten days. Birds with blackhead will often also develop a secondary infection, usually E. coli and for that you'll need something like Baytril.

All can be purchased without a presciption online.

Fish-Zole is 250mg of metronidazole (Flagyl).


You can also buy it in 100mg tablets:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/MedPet-Medi...912?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3ccdd8fa60



Fish-Zole is cheaper, but this will help those that need to medicate their birds right away.
http://www.petsmart.com/product/ind...ferralID=be9d6d47-449f-11e3-a8bc-001b2166c62d




Wormers:







Baytril:
http://www.allbirdproducts.com/newproductpages/baytril.html
http://www.ladygouldianfinch.com/product_baytril.php

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

I wondered about the bdead bird thing. We didn't know what to do with them, and thought to put it in that pile. We haven't done anything with the product of the pile because it has only been going for about 4 months. Does everyone else just bury their dead.

I will check into sending them in and read up on blackhead to see the symptoms.

Thank you, at least it is a place to start.

You could also try doing your own necropsy. If it's blackhead, it should be pretty obvious. Read this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...s-probable-blackhead-five-miles-from-my-place

-Kathy

 

[casportpony]

I wondered about the bdead bird thing. We didn't know what to do with them, and thought to put it in that pile. We haven't done anything with the product of the pile because it has only been going for about 4 months. Does everyone else just bury their dead.

I will check into sending them in and read up on blackhead to see the symptoms.

Thank you, at least it is a place to start.

We bury ours, deep. Do your chickens have access to the compost pile? If they do, and the poults are the only ones dying, it's probably blackhead.

-Kathy

 

[Wasson6Pack]

We bury ours, deep. Do your chickens have access to the compost pile? If they do, and the poults are the only ones dying, it's probably blackhead.

-Kathy

No actually, the chickens are all in pens, just the Turkeys roam unless a chicken gets out, but they don't regularly head there, the Turkeys scratch through there once a day.

Do you bury everything in the same place?

The people before us didn't have chickens here for at least the last 8 years.

 

[sonderah]

Ok, so we have a huge problem at out house right now and I'm starting to freak. We had 12 Turkeys, 5RP from a hatchery and 7 sweetgrass we hatched from local eggs. They roam the yard during the day and are in a large enclosure with a few chickens at night. They are dropping like flies. I don't give them straight turkey feed, but mix a bag of high protein with a bag of layer and a bag of whoop'em which is a bad of corn, sunflower seeds, .... They seem to go to bed fine and when they wake up, 1 seems to be lethargic and then dies by nightfall. About 1 - 2 per week. Now there is another this morning and we will be down to 4. They are about 10 - 12 Weeks old. The only thing I have noticed (besides, they don't eat much feed, just whatever they can chase down outside) is that they dig in the compost bun. It had food in it, along with grass clipping and the litter I ship out of the bins, plus the dead birds we get. WE Put everything in a large pile outback.

Any ideas why they are dying? Any suggestions at all? We try and force feed them a bit of wet feed, but it hadn't saved any of them. They become lethargic and they just sit and don't walk, almost like they just sit down to die.

Are the chickens they r housed with around the same age, or are they adults?

 

[JJSS89]

Moldy, rotten grass clippings and bio matter probably doesn't do poults any favors.

 

[Wasson6Pack]

Are the chickens they r housed with around the same age, or are they adults?

They aren't really around the chickens much at ask and they are mostly 4 month olds, ish. my yard is a square. Most of the chickens started in chicken tractors in the back yard, (middle of the square) for their first 3 weeks outside, then moved to the bottom offhand corner of the square. The meat birds we have live in the to right corner and although they do go past them as they roam, they don't spend but a few minutes there each day.

They do roam where the birds were for their first 3 weeks in the middle of the square, but the chickens have been gone for at least 2 months. Every night they go into a pen with 3 silver sebrights that should be at least 12 weeks old. We got them from a friend and held then for 30 days with no problems. They spend the night together.

We have some smaller chickens in a brooder that they can't get to, but they can dig through the 'compost'pile which had the let from the brooders and food water from the house and garden and grass and dead birds.

 

[casportpony]

FYI, never had an issue with blackhead until we moved here and this property never had chickens on it before ours, it was a part of a 50 acre hay field, no house, no barn, no animals, yet we have blackhead.

-Kathy