Hello Everyone,
I am not new to turkeys, but I am starting with a new set of poults. To begin, I will supply a little history. We attempted to raise a turkey on our property with chickens a couple of years ago, but the jenny got blackhead and passed away before I could begin treatment. I am an RN and a long time chicken keeper so medications, injections, de-worming, and all of that I am plenty familiar with. Blackhead was positively confirmed with a necropsy performed by myself as evidenced by the bullseye lesions on the liver. At the time, I had also split on an order of Royal Palm poults with a friend and they were still in an indoor brooder off the ground and away from chickens at the time of my jenny's passing. The more I researched blackhead, the more I became discouraged and swiftly gave all of the poults to my friend to spare them an untimely demise on my property to the infection. She had previously had turkeys on her property before so I assumed Blackhead wasn't an issue for her. However, I later learned that she had lost some turkeys suddenly from illness in a previous batch but the survivors matured and grew into adulthood and were healthy. Unfortunately, she also has chickens on her property and also had chickens in the pen she eventually kept the RP poults after they were about half grown. When they were about 3 months old some of them were infected with Blackhead. Again, positively confirmed with necropsy performed by me. However, she was able to save the rest of them with a prescription of metronidazole from her veterinarian. They grew up and eventually developed a strong enough immune system to protect them against Blackhead. She never separated them from her chickens. Sorry for the long backstory.
Anyway, I recently got the desire to try again with turkeys and acquired 12 Sweetgrass poults this past weekend. I will also be getting 2 Narragansett poults Thursday. I have stocked up on cayenne (5 pounds of it!) for prevention and lots of metronidazole for treatment of Blackhead just in case. The people I got the Sweetgrass poults from are very good friends and have also struggled with Blackhead in the past. They swear by cayenne in their drinking water for prevention and said they have not lost a single turkey to Blackhead since they started using cayenne. I have removed chickens from about a 1/3 acre lot that my Pyrenees live in. The lot has sandy soil and plenty of grass for the turkeys to graze on. I will put agricultural lime and fresh bedding down in the outdoor brooder my poults will go into when they outgrow the indoor one. And I will never confine them with chickens. However, the 1/3 acre lot has had chickens in it, just a few weeks ago actually but not in a concentrated way. I will regularly de-worm my turkeys every 3 months with fenbendazole. I will also closely monitor them for signs of Blackhead and begin treatment immediately. I know the dosage (25mg/kg twice daily for 5 days) and have plenty of metronidazole (about 100+ 500mg tablets).
If anyone can illuminate anything further I can do to prevent Blackhead in my precious turkey poults I would be greatly appreciative of any advice, guidance, and support provided in this thread.
Thanks in advance!
I am not new to turkeys, but I am starting with a new set of poults. To begin, I will supply a little history. We attempted to raise a turkey on our property with chickens a couple of years ago, but the jenny got blackhead and passed away before I could begin treatment. I am an RN and a long time chicken keeper so medications, injections, de-worming, and all of that I am plenty familiar with. Blackhead was positively confirmed with a necropsy performed by myself as evidenced by the bullseye lesions on the liver. At the time, I had also split on an order of Royal Palm poults with a friend and they were still in an indoor brooder off the ground and away from chickens at the time of my jenny's passing. The more I researched blackhead, the more I became discouraged and swiftly gave all of the poults to my friend to spare them an untimely demise on my property to the infection. She had previously had turkeys on her property before so I assumed Blackhead wasn't an issue for her. However, I later learned that she had lost some turkeys suddenly from illness in a previous batch but the survivors matured and grew into adulthood and were healthy. Unfortunately, she also has chickens on her property and also had chickens in the pen she eventually kept the RP poults after they were about half grown. When they were about 3 months old some of them were infected with Blackhead. Again, positively confirmed with necropsy performed by me. However, she was able to save the rest of them with a prescription of metronidazole from her veterinarian. They grew up and eventually developed a strong enough immune system to protect them against Blackhead. She never separated them from her chickens. Sorry for the long backstory.
Anyway, I recently got the desire to try again with turkeys and acquired 12 Sweetgrass poults this past weekend. I will also be getting 2 Narragansett poults Thursday. I have stocked up on cayenne (5 pounds of it!) for prevention and lots of metronidazole for treatment of Blackhead just in case. The people I got the Sweetgrass poults from are very good friends and have also struggled with Blackhead in the past. They swear by cayenne in their drinking water for prevention and said they have not lost a single turkey to Blackhead since they started using cayenne. I have removed chickens from about a 1/3 acre lot that my Pyrenees live in. The lot has sandy soil and plenty of grass for the turkeys to graze on. I will put agricultural lime and fresh bedding down in the outdoor brooder my poults will go into when they outgrow the indoor one. And I will never confine them with chickens. However, the 1/3 acre lot has had chickens in it, just a few weeks ago actually but not in a concentrated way. I will regularly de-worm my turkeys every 3 months with fenbendazole. I will also closely monitor them for signs of Blackhead and begin treatment immediately. I know the dosage (25mg/kg twice daily for 5 days) and have plenty of metronidazole (about 100+ 500mg tablets).
If anyone can illuminate anything further I can do to prevent Blackhead in my precious turkey poults I would be greatly appreciative of any advice, guidance, and support provided in this thread.
Thanks in advance!