Turkey Walking Like A Drunk???? *Update*

[Stewarts]

Thank you so much for your advice. Here's my story:

We have a rescued turkey hen who is laying, we've had her for a month and a quarter. She was abused and left to starve by her owners and was sitting on three eggs for about three weeks and barely eating ,according to friends of ours who had her in their yard. We brought her home and isolated her in a large prepared dog cage that was enclosed with tarp to protect her. I let her have her eggs for two days {she was eating proper food} until I found one broken and bad so I took the other two away. One was also bad, the other had a dead full grown turkey chick in it.

She is still in poor condition but better than she was. Her feathers are finally growing back in, she has been gaining a little weight but not by much in the past month; she's at the point where she is no longer longer totally scraggly. She has a healthy appetite; I am sprouting whole barely and have given some to them in their treats but no over doing it.

She was in the coup with two other turkeys and my chickens, all grown and all healthy birds, but she was being picked on along with my meat chicken so we took them out of the coup and put up a palette area with tarp on the floor and lots of straw, in the spare room of the house. Literally the ONLY place we have to put them! Sweet Pea and Henny, the meat chicken, have been in there and all has been well for the past two weeks, they get along well.

I suspect she ate some unsprouted barely seed that I have been trying to grow, I just started adding very weak amounts of plant food to the water and soaking it a few minutes then pour it off to keep the nutrition up for the sprouts. I don't feed this to my birds but she may have accidentally gotten some. I don't know if it will pass through her system or what will happen. Henny ate some of the same but she appears to be fine, this happen yesterday so this just happened this morning.

Sweet Pea is very alert, she can stand ok and her head is stationary when she walks, she just can't walk straight and has to sit down. She is very curious as to what I was doing in the spare room as she considers that area as hers; I was cleaning up and bleaching. She drinks readily and I have SuperBoost in the water; she's on medicated turkey feed. I don't know what else to do except wait. She had normal droppings and the urine is whitish. Her feed consists of medication turkey grower, a little corn, oyster shell, rolled barely. I have to add chick finisher because of Henny but this is what they've been eating for over a month and both are fine. I have read that when it comes to the feed between chickens and turkeys, consider the turkey feed first. Chickens seem to be stronger birds.

Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Turkey Mamma]

I am having a similar problem with my turkey (think it's a hen but this is my first time having turkeys and Lucky was part of a straight run). No eggs, about 8 months old. Lucky lived in my spare bathroom with three other brothers and sisters (it's a big bathroom) for four months of that time and then right after we put them out in their coop (with top cover and 6 foot tall fencing) a neighbor's dog jumped the fence, fell through the roof and killed the three other turkeys and then left Lucky with pretty nasty puncture wounds and a bad case of shock. We originally bought them as meat birds but after nursing Lucky back to health and moving her to our back yard to be closer to us she has become a pet instead of food

She sits in my lap or next to me on the swing and lets me rock/pet her. She follows me around the back yard, let's my two year old pet her and even sits at my feet next to our 65lb black lab and begs for grapes and cherry tomato's (her favorite). I knew that she was strictly a meat bird when we got her because of her breed but after the situation with the dog attack I became attached to her and she has become part of the family. She has been fine for several months, in fact we were just out there with her on Sunday and she was her normal perky self....I have been busy the last couple of days with Christmas decorating so I had my son feed and water her. He said he didn't notice anything was wrong but when I went out to say hi to her yesterday she was laying on the ground and wouldn't get up.

She was pretty dirty and her underside was covered in poop so I brought her in, gave her a bath to see if I could find a wound or anything that might be causing the behavior. After I blow dried her and got some of the feathers clear I noticed that the tip of her wing is missing and bleeding but other than that she appears fine. She is missing most of the feathers on her belly (this could be because we had her pinned up for the recent cold snap but we still let her out during the day). The skin looks fine but the feathers are missing. She's done molting for the winter I think and we give her layer pellets because we buy for her and the chickens. She also free ranges in a fenced yard that is just under an acre and we don't over feed her (at least I hadn't thought so). She is very large. The pic above is of her this summer. She is almost double that size now...I'd guess between 30 - 40 lbs.

I know that the issue could be her weight but from what I had read there wasn't anything I could do about it but make her as loved and comfortable as I could. I just wasn't expecting this to be an issue so soon. She seems to want to lean forward (unable to stand) and either one or both legs out behind or beside her. She is free of mites, feed healthy food, is not around other birds, does not appear to have been attacked, and has fresh hay, food, and water regularly. Her feet don't appear swollen, I rubbed around on her belly, behind her legs and under her bottom and felt no lumps or other abnormalities. She has not started laying yet either. I have her on a powdered antibiotic and she is eating, drinking, and pooping just fine. I'm going to try some baby aspirin and see if that helps ease her discomfort. Is there anything else I could try?

Here are some pics I took of Lucky this evening. They show what her legs look like, etc.

 

[Stewarts]

Ok, so she's a MEAT bird. No matter what you feed her she will continue to gain weight, that is their breeding and you can't change that. How thick are her legs? Are you giving her greens? Lettuce, chard, sprouted barley etc. they love those. I had 5 meat hens this summer/autumn and they gained weight no matter what they ate and they gained it quickly. 30-40 pds is huge for these birds and I'm thinking the reason she can no longer walk is because her legs and feet can no longer support her weight. She is a beautiful bird.

We had 25 meat chickens, we kept one as a pet and she lays for us but she is BIG and has a little trouble breathing so I keep an eye on her. She doesn't move fast when she walks because she gets out of breath easily, but she's my Henny. I have her and a young rescue turkey hen in the spare room in a palette enclosure that I let them out of during the day because my other birds in the insulated coup outside would not accept her. The turkey hen is doing much better and she'll be able to go into the coup soon, that will leave Henny....

Watch your bird's breathing, at that weight I should expect breathing distress. She'll open her beak and appear to be panting and her chest will heave. That's what Henny does. Sooner or later you will have no choice but to butcher her. Its a hard lesson to learn but if you really want to raise a turkey for a pet, its best to go with a wild or domestic breed. They don't grow near so fast or have the extreme weight gain. Only thing to watch with them is that they can fly. Meat birds can't fly, they are too heavy. I also have a wild adult Tom and another mixed turkey hen that I raised from a chick. Amber is quite large but the white meat hens we had were larger yet.


My meat hens at 4 months old, DH butchered them. One developed an infection
and breathing problems and that seemed to be passing to another one. It was time.
We sold them to people wanting naturally raised turkeys.

I put her and Amber, my grey/white turkey hen in the hutch,
she's is there for company for her and didn't sicken.
Amber is not a meat bird and you see the difference in size.
Amber is older than the meat hen and the hen is 4 months old.

Chicklet, my natural Roo and Henny, the meat hen.
See how huge she is compared to the regular hens below

My girls are mostly feather, pick them up and their is little 'heavy' weight to them.
Pick Henny up and she's all weight.

My wild, adult turkey Tom is all fanned out. In the front of the picture
is the little rescue turkey hen. She was in poor shape because she
let him mate her so I took her out to recover in the spare room with
Henny.

In butchering them, my hubby did the deed, you see how much fat there is around the organs that you have to remove. Good luck with your bird.

 

[Stewarts]

If she seems in distress give her 1/2 tsp of SuperBoost into 1.5 L of water, it will turn the water a yellow color and last for 24 hours so you have to give fresh every 24 hours. My indoor, rescue turkey hen was recently seriously ill, I had her on it for 3 days and she recovered completely. I added more because 1/4 tsp wasn't quite enough. I also added 1/2 tsp Cayenne to the water for them both, this helps prevent/treat a disease both chickens and turkeys are prone too, Blackhead. If she lays an egg you can't eat it because of the med she is on. SuperBoost is a combination general antibiotic and vitamin/mineral. You can also feed her turkey pellets only, without the rolled barley and oats. She needs cracked corn and oyster shell to lay. Cracked corn is a 'heat' food, energy food. Turkey grower is to help them grow, turkey finisher is what you feed before you butcher, so the turkey crumbles are for when you first feed them as chicks. No matter what food you give, she will gain weight from it.


Palette enclosure in the spare room.


Henny and Sweetpea, she is standing on the waterier.
Notice the water is yellow because of the SuperBoost.


The area inside the enclosure is a fair size, plenty of room for them both.
Look carefully and you will see two eggs in the top corner. I cook the eggs,
put them through my processor to chop fine and feed them to the wild birds;
crows and ravens love the much needed protein during the winter.


Sweetpea is much improved for her month in the house. Her feathers are
all grown in on her back, belly and she's feathering out up her neck. She's
a pretty brown/grey color, same as my Tom. She's the one who's got all the
straw everywhere, it amuses her to jump in the tote and spread it all over the
place!

She has a rather pretty speckled coloring on her wings and belly.
Henny wants in the picture too. Under that twin size sheet is a blue
tarp and I change and wash the sheet{s} daily, I have more than one;
washing the tarp underneath with bleach water.

Messy Birds! But we love them.

 

[Stewarts]

Be more specific, what are her symptoms? Can she walk at all? Is she stumbling and falling when she walks?

Because this is a completely different situation if she is. If that is the case, you need to get SuperBoost into her water ASAP!!!

My hen was accidentally fed barley sprouts that I was growing using a little bit of plant food and it acted like a poison on her so your bird might have eaten something bad. She has since recovered and it didn't bother Henny at all but both were treated.

Let me know, ASAP!

 

[Turkey Mamma]

Mrs. Stewarts - Thank you for responding to both of my posts. I'm sorry there are two...I posted here but it was an older post and had no responses all day yesterday so I posted a new thread too. Okay, specific symptoms:

1. She is awake, alert, and even "perky"
2. She cannot stand (or wont) and doesn't walk
3. She doesn't act "drunk" but she has trouble keeping her self sitting up straight.
4. She eats and drinks eagerly with no problem and is pooping fine - caveat: It was solid yesterday but now it's runny. It could be due to the grapes I fed her when I gave her the baby aspirin thought.
5. Her leg is not swollen but based on what you said in the other post, the foot may be a bit (although that was the other leg not the one that is put behind her)
6. She does try to scoot around and flaps her wings wildly when she does this if she scoots off of her bed onto my floor (it's probably too slick for her).
7. She is panting. I attributed this to stress from all that she is being put through right now. In addition to possible pain from whatever injury she may have, she is also probably overstimulated because even though she loves being close to us, when she is outside, eventually we go back in the house and she has time to "just be a turkey" and have some peace. Right now, she's sort of in the middle of all the action of our crazy house.
8. I don't usually give her greens because she free ranges and gets lots of stuff out side. I do give her yogurt, grapes or tomatoes from our garden once in a while as a treat. I will go pick up some greens too.

I am going to go get her some Superboost right away. Hoping they sell it at tractor supply but if they don't I can call around. Thanks again for the advice and following both posts. Hopefully something will work for her.

 

[Stewarts]

Can you get her to a vet? They'd be better able to give you some indication of what's going, on then you can decide on whatever options they suggest.

Healthy legs are hard enough to stand on at the best of times but when meat bird get too heavy... sometimes, when they get to be over 15 pounds the legs will simply give out under them because of the weight. Had that happen to one meat hen and didn't notice it till the next morning that she went down during the night and could not stand at all so she hadn't eaten - hubby butchered her. That's the only thing you can do because meat birds are meant for eating, they aren't designed as pets.

Since she has trouble sitting upright and can't walk, it could be something she ate. My rescue turkey hen could not walk a straight line so she sat down but she was able to keep herself upright. I'm wondering now if its a disease called Blackhead that turkeys are prone to. The best advice I can give you - I'd get her to a vet right now and find out for sure what's going on, there's little sense in trying to give her all kinds of meds that may do more harm to her and may compound whatever the problem is. You can still give her the SuperBoost, it certainly won't hurt.

Let me know what happens.

 

[Turkey Mamma]

Tractor Supply does carry the Superboost and I am going to pick some up right now. I've re-cleaned just her feet to see if I could see anything that looks like a puncture wound. It does appear that there are tiny scab looking spots but no holes per say. I'm going to soak her feet in Epsom salt and then give her the superboost too. I watched a video on surgery for treatment but I'm afraid to do something so invasive especially when I don't know if that is the whole problem. I don't want to torture her. I do want to thank you for sharing about your own feather babies. I didn't think about the breathing problems that could come from the weight gain, even though it seems like a no-brainer. She is no longer panting. Just chilled out on her bed. We will see what happens. It's been kind of a rough morning. Both of my boys have the flue so I've been cleaning up baby puke, administering medicine, and changing turkey "diapers" (paper towels under her), all morning. This is supposed to be my Christmas vacation from college....At this point I think I'd almost rather go back to school...lol

 

[Stewarts]

If, and only IF a vet sees her and suggests surgery, should it be done and by a vet. It could be that she has hurt her foot and doesn't want to stand on it or it could be something far more serious. Give her the SuperBoost for a 3 days and keep a close eye on her. See if any of her symptoms improve, the breathing, holding herself upright, appetite, poop, the whole nine yards. I'd still get her to a vet to determine what's going on though. The only other option you have is to butcher her if she starts to worsen.

My hubby does that part and he makes sure I'm in the house before he starts because I'm the biggest cry-baby you've ever seen! But if its for the good of the bird and prevents suffering, then into the deep freeze she goes. I won't allow a bird to suffer just because I want her or him as a pet, that's selfish beyond belief.

Stay in touch.

 

[Turkey Mamma]

Yes I agree. I don’t want to make things worse for her and I have never performed surgery before (except removing splinters from little fingers of course). I would believe it was something she stepped on if it weren’t both legs. She can’t stand or lean on either. I do not have a vet anywhere within 50 miles of me that will see her. Before we purchased our chickens and turkeys I researched vets in my area and even the exotic animal vets won’t see any poultry. I don’t really understand why because the anatomy has to be at least similar. It’s been pretty frustrating.

And yes, of course I understand that meat birds are never meant to live past butcher age. I had never intended for her to be a pet. I have the chicken coop and the turkey coop far off from the house and only interact with them as needed to provide care….but after the attack, when we realized the coop had been compromised and she was all alone, we moved her to the back yard and built her a small coop just big enough for her and her food. The back yard is fenced in and she is closer to us out there so we can hear if something is going on and get to her more quickly. That’s really how we got to become “buddies.” We are outside people and spend a lot of time in the back yard. She got use to us and we got use to her, and then eventually she was sitting in my lap and letting me pet her. She has a wonderful personality and I just couldn’t help but love her.

I wish this hadn’t happened – we never wanted this life for her, because I did research the breed before we purchased and knew what could happen if we didn’t butcher them. I even put an ad on craigslist a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving for someone to buy her to butcher because I was worried that she would be lonely out there by herself because we wouldn’t be out with her as much during the winter and didn’t want her to go through that. I figured it was the best thing but no one bought her. I know that is her purpose but just can’t do it myself this one time. I never thought I’d care this much about a turkey…but I never thought I’d have to wipe turkey butt either. Still, I’m glad that I have had her in my life because she is such a funny, quirky, and loving bird. She’s not aggressive like a lot of people say about them and she is smart too. She has been a blessing to me and I am sorry that she has to suffer in any way as a result.

This was Lucky with me, my youngest and her three brothers and sisters just before we moved them to the larger crate in the bathroom The small brooder behind us in the pic was her home then. It's funny that she is back in that same place now on the bed I made her. Makes me want to cry. It probably seems silly that I care so much for a bird...but I can't help it.