[mentalmilly]

What l did about a blackhead problem with my poults.  Hatched 8 turkey poults in incubator put them with a broody hen and she did a fantastic job of rearing them.  When they were bigger than she was and she was getting a bit trampled at feed time (9 weeks old) she was put back in with the other hens.  The turkeys were fine but a few days later the dreaded yellow pooh started.  One looked a bit down and pooping yellow all the time so, vet advice, worm them.  Did that and a few days later she died. A couple of the others started to look a bit off and yellow poohs sometimes so l though, blow the vet get on the web.  In case anyone else has had this problem l got rid of mine using cayenne pepper.  Boiled egg for breakfast with pepper sprinkled on the top every day and every 3 days a slice of bread with pepper sprinkled on shared between them.  They all are now well and running around like idiots as happy as can be. The egg and pepper will continue until they are adult or we run out of eggs, or dare l say eat them. Anyone else used this pepper?

[HesterF]

Never heard of it - a bit sceptical to be honest because I can't think why cayenne pepper would kill the protozoa but I'd be willing to give it a go if needs be since it can't do any harm.

[Eve]

I've heard of it, and there's a long thread about it on one of the American forums. It has to do with turkeys in the wild eating certain chilies.


I tried it recently on mine as one of my chickens came down with it and I need to be very careful as I also keep turkeys (separately). Can't say with 100% certainty that it helped as I managed to get some medication two days later as well, but I was under the impression it did improve before the medication would have kicked in. I used easily 2 of those little glass jars from the spice rack as I mixed it into their mash and put it in their water as well - which proved very popular!  [size=78%] [/size]

[mentalmilly]

It does no harm at all and l have read Hester, that it kills the nasties that the turkeys eat, in the stomachs (or crops) before they can do harm. Bugs dont like it hot l suppose.  l am going to keep it going, and they do like their boiled egg in the morning.