Why does my turkey keep growing wings? **PICS ADDED**

[Cara]

I think the bare part is the underside of the 'wing'. From the other side it is well-feathered. I keep an eye on it to make sure he doesn't get an infection, but being where it is he is going to scuff if on things.

I don't think a vet can do a whole lot for him. We're not going to have surgery done, and we can put him down if necessary. I think removing it would actually kill him, we debated it when he was a poult but it appears to have a blood supply. At the moment he seems perfectly happy though, he's always had the bigger extra wing so it's normal to him.

 

[Rosalind]

Doesn't necessarily have to be a teratoma (semi-absorbed twin)--you may have to imagine this explanation a bit though:

When limb buds are forming on the embryo, as they would form arms on a human embryo, there's a gene that regulates the *timing* of bud formation. Not the actual bud growth, just the timing and how fast it grows. In a human, that gene is going to pulse five times to make five fingers, turning the budding gene on and off to produce five buds. In a bird, it's going to pulse only twice to make the wing and the little "thumb" they get. Mutations in the timing gene produce extra fingers or less fingers than usual. Mutations in this gene are not terribly uncommon in mammals because we can get along just fine with less fingers or extra fingers; polydactyly is well-known in cats and in inbred human populations. You happened to get a polydactyl turkey, which is rare because polydactyly in birds would kill any bird that had to fly normally to survive to adulthood.

Is there a vet school near you? They might be interested in looking at him just as an example of what can happen.

 

[MissPrissy]

Genetic mutations in birds like this happen more than most realize. Don't use him for breeding. Let someone at your state lab look at him. They might find it quite interesting.

 

[Cara]

Do you think they could examine him alive? I don't want them to euthanize him.

 

[flakey chick]

They should be able to Xray him alive just fine. I agree about not breeding him, but if you get one that starts growing Xtra drumsticks....

 

[19hhbelgian]

I might have an answer for you... We had a pair of kids (goats) born on the farm a couple years ago. The girl started having eye trouble. We had the vet look at it, and Sprint actually had eyelashes growing from her eyeball

It was really gross. Vet said it was a rare type of tumor. So, we had it removed, but the eyelashes grew back, and we wound up having to remove the whole eye in order to get rid of the tumor. Sprint is perfectly fine now and doesn't know anything is missing

It could very well be the same type of thing going on with your turkey. My vet said she'd seen this type of tumor only one other time, but it was an external thing growing, not eyelashes! Even she thought it was gross!