Author Topic: blackhead in turkeys or something else? (Read 1819 times)

DenisCooper · « **on:** July 15, 2018, 09:07:57 pm »

hi,

I've been on holiday for a couple of weeks and had friends looking after everything here for me.

we had several casulties of our young turkey poults - I had 18 ranging from two 6 weeks old to 10 weeks old and they just started dying off in the last few days. (I've got ten left now)

the latest one died yesterday. It didn't look well so I moved it out into a cage on Friday. I noticed in the cage that there was some bright yellow watery diarrhea. Its wings were drooped too.

All the turkeys have been kept together in one of the empty stables - well away from the chickens.

Does this sound like blackhead?

Whats my best course of action for the others - flubenvet?

I understand there isn't much I can do if they have it, but I was going to give the vet a call tomorrow to see what they had to say.

Thanks
Denis

landroverroy · « **Reply #1 on:** July 15, 2018, 10:37:51 pm »

A successful treatment for blackhead is cayenne pepper. I have used it successfully with my peafowl which are also susceptible to it.
In my "recipe" notebook it says 1 rounded tablespoonful in 20 litres of chopped feed. But doesn't say how many it treats or whether the chopped food is wet eg veg or dry eg pellets. As I recall I mixed about a tblspn in about 2 litres of their normal pellets. I damped it with water to make it stick. The mixture was coloured red from the pepper, so pretty strong, but it doesn't matter if it's very peppery as birds cannot taste it at all.

Other treatments are:
Fish zole (metronidazole) - used to treat fish so apparently available from a pet shop.
Cider vinegar - I think I added this to the red pepper as well, just to make sure.
Diatomaceous earth.
I haven't used the other 2.

If you also keep poultry then treat them as well as they carry blackhead, although they are unaffected by it. That is why it is recommended not to keep turkeys and poultry together.

DenisCooper · « **Reply #2 on:** July 16, 2018, 06:21:53 pm »

thanks I've bought some cayenne and will give it a go.

spoke to the vet he seems to think it will more likely be cocidosis (most likely spelt wrong) and wants me to take some pooh samples in to be tested.

landroverroy · « **Reply #3 on:** July 16, 2018, 10:41:46 pm »

Well, yellow watery droppings are a sign of blackhead. Coccidiosis is usually characterised by blood in the droppings. However, a natural treatment for the latter is to feed whole grain. The action of grinding it up in the gut also grinds up and destroys the coccidia. It is possibly a more effective treatment for prevention than cure, but will certainly stop any others getting it if that is indeed the problem.

DenisCooper · « **Reply #4 on:** July 19, 2018, 09:53:18 pm »

vets have confirmed blackhead....most of my flock of turkeys have gone

vet doesn't hold much hope for the others, im trying apple cider vinegar in water and cayenne pepper on the food.

vets advice is to carry out a course of worming every 3 months for all the birds. Use foot bath between going into and out of where the turkeys are. and using something like Virkon to make sure everything is fully disenfected before trying again.

he said once its in the environment its very difficult to get rid of, as it can be transferred through earth worms and also turkey to turkey.

I don't want to give up just yet on turkeys so will give it another go. I wish id paid more attention in school in biology lessons as it would help make more sense of how these parasites actually work - back to the learning board.