Very graphic pictures of dead turkey insides !

[Celie]

Guys, remember the very young Holland White turkey I said had spurs but looked like a hen ? Well, it got throat worms, or what I thought were throat worms, so I seeped the tobacco from a cigarette in some warm water overnight and poured a couple tablespoons down it's throat. It was the only one with any symptoms and the only symptom was that it kept holding it's mouth open and looked like it was gaging. After I got a good hold on the bird, I held it's mouth open and gently poured the cool tea down it's throat. It pulled away and shook it's head and I thought I would have to make more, because very little was swallowed. It coughed a bit and walked away. The phone rang at that time and I hurried to answered it. It was my daughter, calling to say she had a lot of extra carrots, celery and cabbage from her garden, for the rabbits. I hung up quickly and went back to the yard to find the turkey laying a few feet from where I had given him the tobacco tea, on the ground dead! I knew at that point, I had done something wrong. It happens and he was the youngest and smallest of 24 hatched last summer in a staggered hatching, from my original breeders. Since I had 14 toms and had not planned on breeding the runt, it is not a great loss. I chalked it up to a lesson learned. NEVER LEAVE A TURKEY YOU JUST GAVE TOBACCO JUICE TO ! I brought him in and took the head off to bleed it out, convinced it had to be a tom, Since I had counted 13 hens and 13 other toms, out of which I had first identified as 13 hens and 14 toms. He was a very light skinny long legged bird and I could have dry plucked him, but I did scald him with the faucet water in the utility room sink plus added a small pasta pot of almost boiling water. After he was plucked, I opened him up and this is what I found inside: a normal size heart and gizzard, a normal looking lungs and intestines, a very small liver, that looked like only one side of the liver and a very large gall bladder, that squirted all over the wall, when I tried to remove it, very bright green, bile. There were 2 other items inside the turkey. One was this mass of hard lumpy knobby hard things with what looks like an egg yolk attached and a soft ball shaped mass about twice the size of a golf ball, that was solid but on the soft side that you can see here:




The rest of the internals looked like this:







Please notice the spur in the third picture and the yolk in the last. I haven't seen an ovary this large, if that is what it is and I do not know what the other thing that you see cut in half is! Do you think it was a tom or a hen and do you know what the other 2 items in question are? Does anyone know what it was suffering from, besides me? LOL I did not see any worms at all so I guess I drowned it in the tablespoon of tobacco tea?

 

[kuntrygirl]

WOW Celie. Sorry to hear about what happened. I have no idea. I will have to PM casportpony and tell her to check it out. She is the guru of all of this stuff. Poor bird.

 

[casportpony]

WOW Celie. Sorry to hear about what happened. I have no idea. I will have to PM casportpony and tell her to check it out. She is the guru of all of this stuff. Poor bird.

You're very sweet, but I'm hardly a guru, lol, but I am pretty good at finding veterinary info online. Page three of this pdf says that nicotine is a toxin and can cause depression, dyspnea, coma and death.

http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/avmed/ampa/37.pdf

It's chapter 37 from here:
http://www.harrisonsbirdfoods.com/avmed/chapters.html

 

[casportpony]

This looks like it could have been EYP

 

[casportpony]

Are those dark parts the cecal pouches? If so, were they full of dark poop or were they necrotic?

 

[casportpony]

This link has some very graphic pictures of EYP.
https://www.google.com/search?aq=&r...A&biw=1633&bih=901&sei=5dE0UcD_PM7JqQH0tYDgBQ

 

[Celie]

First of all, I would like to thank KuntryGirl and Castportpony for the quick responses and help. It is very much appreciated here!
This is the only one that was showing any signs and was the youngest, less than a year, that hatched from my flock last summer. I only garden organically and use no chemicals or commercial pesticides, but all of my birds free range and have done so here for 4 years and I only have had turkeys for 4 years. Anything could have pooped in the fields, of course, but so far, thank God, this is the only bird out of 300+ total chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese. I also have 2 dogs and 2 cats. The rabbits live in a barn in raised cages. The turkey has been gasping off and on for a few weeks, but not like it was panting, like they do sometimes in the summer, but more like it was gaging, so I thought it might be throat worms. I have not been able to find DE powder to treat the soil with since all of this rain stopped, because all the stores are out. The only thing I have ever used to clean waterers and things that the birds are exposed to, is a 10% bleach solution, followed by a lot of fresh clean water. I have not had any health issues since I have lived here(4 years) and the land has never been used for livestock. I used tobacco only once, about 10 minutes before it's death. At least that is all the time that had past from the time I gave it to the bird until I returned to it. There was no signs of injury or blood or anything coming from the mouth. I don't understand what the 2 things I pointed out in the picture, but I noticed it looked like it had only 1/2 a liver and a huge gall bladder, so I thought the round object I cut open was the other piece of liver as they usually have 2 lobes. The second lobe was very small piece of one. The cluster was hard nodules with what looked like a very small egg yolk forming. Could this large mass have been the ovaries? It was larger than any I had ever seen in a turkey hen! I saw no testicles in the bird! Do you think it was a hen, or would it have been too young for them to show? I do feel bad about killing the bird, but live and learn and if it is something I can avoid doing or can protect the rest of the flocks from, it was worth the price.

 

[casportpony]

Have you ever wormed your birds? And yes, it was a hen, one that probably had EYP.

 

[casportpony]

FWIW, the last time I bought chicken livers, one side /lobe/whatever was always larger than the other.

 

[Celie]

BTW, it probably not Egg Yolk Peritonitis, because he/she had not started laying yet, was very young ( about 7 1/2 months to 8 months old), and there was only one yellow yolk looking soft round thing and the rest of the encased things were hard, until they were cut them open this morning, after I read your post. They looked just like the one double the size of a golf ball, pictured last night cut open and very firm. The smaller nodules were soft and gushy when I cut into them, like the consistency of a soft pudding. The only yolk visible was the small yellow one attached to this thing, which probably have been her first egg. Her appearance was very masculine with a small beard and spurs, that's why I thought it was a tom. he did not strut or display, but had a whiter head than any of my toms or hens and a bumpier head. She was also paler, without much red in her head at all. Her feathering was very nice and she did not gobble yet or act like either a hen or a tom much, just a young Omega in the pecking order, but hung with the hens mostly. But I have 3 hens that are always in a group of 7 toms! LOL She was always paler and odder looking than the others, which all look alike, except this one, in appearance! Could sh have been full of tumors ?