[Carey boy]

Hi,

I have two young turkey,s about 12 week,s old. One is making a good table bird the other is off it,s feed and lifeless,  tonight I picked it up to put it on it,s own and as I did a clear fluid poured out of it,s mouth. 

Is there anything I can do or should I put it down?

Help please.

David

[wayfarer]

Oh dear.  I haven't had any problems with mine but do they get sour crop?  If you turn a chicken upside down with sour crop you get a liquid coming out so may be worth treating for that?

[Buffy the eggs layer]

It could be problems with a sour or compacted crop but I have also seen that with birds who are suffering from other health issues. Feel her crop gently and if you can feel the pellets and grains that she has eaten that day moving about as you massage it then its not compacted. What are her droppings like/ is she bony? Could it be that she hasnt eaten much for a while or that the food that she is eating isnt being absorbed.

[chrismahon]

Sounds like digestive impaction Carey Boy. Basically her crop is full because a blockage in the digestive system somewhere isn't letting food through. The crop contents then go sour. It may be that massaging the crop will clear it but that sounds unlikely from the symptoms. There are many reasons why this happens varying from eating long grass to eating large indigestible objects and can also be cause by internal tumours or in young birds faulty internal development. I think it would be kindest to despatch.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

If its any conciliation I bought 6 this year an so far one died, one was dispatched because it was dying and another one is just starting to look hunched and subdued. I have known a friend hang her hen upside down and empty a sour crop caused by eating cut grass and she made a full recovery but if its a blockage further down as Chris said then that wouldnt help.


When it has happened to my birds the liquid has come up through their nostrils and also made their eyes watery but this has been clear liquid and has happened immediately after drinking like reflux action. Do they have grit available ? You could try syringing with olive oil and massaging the crop gently as this helps to break down any food in there or syringe her with natural yogurt, with live cultures which will nutralise an acid gut. Both these treatments seem to work better at dusk. The birds are easier to handle when its dark and it allows their digestive system to process what they have eaten through the day.


I really haven't had much luck with mine and as much as I have enjoyed them the constant health issues have made me decide not to have turkeys again. I do hope that you have more luck with them than I have had with mine. 

[Marches Farmer]

Where did you buy your birds from and are they a commercial or heritage breed?  This can make a huge difference to their health.   I breed Narragansetts for conservation purposes and have never had any health issues with them but keeping them stress-free when handling can take a bit of practice.

[chrismahon]

I have an old book called 'The "how to do it" Poultry Book' by E.T.Brown, published about 1940 (at a guess) by Arthur Pearson. He wrote a few books in this area and this one has a good turkey section. Three things considered essential are:- Not breeding from anything less than 3 years old because the turkeys are not fully mature (or sickly stock results), not enclosing them (or sickly stock results) and giving them proper perches in a good sized shed (or etc.)


The breed he favours is the Black Norfolk.

[Marches Farmer]

Interesting.  I breed from birds just under a year old.  Ours overwinter in big, well ventilated sheds and an old stable.  We find half-rail paddock fencing to be the best perch but no higher than around 45cm once they're around three months old.  Never had a problem with sickly poults or fertility, feed layers pellets over 16 weeks and remove feeders at night or they can get too fat.

[chrismahon]

You probably won't see the effects for a few generations MF- but breeding from pullets is a well known route to disaster. You inevitably breed in defects that won't manifest for a few years and these become more concentrated so in the end appear in young stock and cannot be bred out. I remember reading of a so called 'lethal gene' carried in a particular breed such that none can ever get get past two years.


E.T.Brown goes on to say that turkeys will breed good healthy stock up to 5 or 6 years old. Our Wyandottes were bred from for the first time this year -they are 5. I think you would be best keeping an old breeding stock and eliminating those that develop problems.

[Marches Farmer]

We're now on the fifth generation and have never lost a bird or had a sick one and hatchability this year was 96% so fingers crossed! 

[Carey boy]

Hi,

Thank you all for your good advice. Unfortunately the bird was in so much distress and pain that I had to put it down. The other three Turkeys are all doing well so fingers crossed.

Thank you

David 

[Buffy the eggs layer]

What to you think it was David?


Marches - your turkeys sound truly great. Is the breed do you think? The strain? Or your husbandry?


mine all seem ok since I introduced the Avianpro that Chris recommended though I still feel they may not be the most robust birds ever hatched.


Oh and didnt you once tell me that your turkeys dont fight Marches? Mine were having a right ding-dong on Sunday. One had its beak open and the other had clamped onto its lower beak and was forcing it onto its back. I kept parting them but they just started again. Oh it was like the time Parky interviewed Rod Hull and emu!

[Marches Farmer]

Marches - your turkeys sound truly great. Is the breed do you think? The strain? Or your husbandry?

Oh and didnt you once tell me that your turkeys dont fight Marches? Mine were having a right ding-dong on Sunday. One had its beak open and the other had clamped onto its lower beak and was forcing it onto its back. I kept parting them but they just started again. Oh it was like the time Parky interviewed Rod Hull and emu!

I bought my foundation stock from Oaklands Poultry years ago but they seem to have gone the large-scale commercial route and don't sell Narragansetts any more.  I separate out stags once mature but the hens occasionally have a bit of a spat and there's some hissing and neck entwining for five minutes then it's all over.

Do yours have lots of room?  I generally run the perch diagonally across the space to give extra corners for any that want one, and just a 60cm section of old railway sleeper in one corner with some straw to be a nesting area in Spring.  I wonder if commercials, being bred solely for broad breast and fast finishing, are going the same route, temperament-wise, as some commercial chickens?   I read a book by Temple Grandin which mentioned that in the US they now have "rapist roosters" that kill the hens when they mate because they no longer do the courtship dance that makes the hens squat, they just leap on them.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Yes they have lots of room. They free range all day, every day in the pigs wood, in the sheep pasture, the orchard, the garden and snooze in the cat basket in the greenhouse given half the chance


If I had to guess why they were scrapping I would think it had something to do with the fact that the pecking order within the group shifted as one of the birds wasnt feeling too good. As she perked up however I susspect she resumed her position and unseated the female that had jumped into her place.


The reason that they value this pecking order seems to be to do with their rights to the stag rather than the food dish. In the end the turkey that had been ill had to stick her head through the fence to try and persuade the other female to let go of her skin. But it was the intervention of the stag who made her let go. He then preceded to shake the aggressive hen about by the skin on her neck until she looked suitably admonished. Fascinating stuff really and despite the squealing and severity not a bit of blood or broken skin in sight.



As you know from other posts being a heritage breed they may not be as genetically diverse as they could be but the male is certainly not the aggressive type like the roosters that you mention. I think its possible to have that type of cock in any flock of hens though and I have certainly seen that behavior in some young males. Personally I dispatch any that are not good breeding stock and temperament plays a huge part in that assessment. The female in any species knows exactly the right time to mate for optimum fertility and the best males of any species no matter how big and strong they are instinctively know this too.

[Marches Farmer]

I wonder if the hens were scrapping over which was highest in the pecking order after the stag?  I've occasionally seen older hens hiss at a newly introduced younger stag but they backed down as soon as he started to display.