We are new to turkeys this year. I promised my wife after we moved and had space, I would get her turkeys. We settled on wanting heritage breeds and chose to go with the Narragansett. We bought 3 birds that were supposed to be 8 weeks or so old and put them in a new 19x11 pen on Aug 3rd. about a week or two later we had a HUGE rain storm for a couple of days. It was then that I realized the chicken pens drained all of their water through the turkey pen! I got out in the rain and redirected all I could and once the storm passed everything seemed fine.
A few days later, one of the turkeys was dead in the pen. It had been running around that morning eating treats and was dead that afternoon. I started looking around the pen and found some piles of yellow tinted poop. Next stop was the forums and I found plenty of stuff on blackhead (eventually) and did a necropsy. I was pretty sure that was the culprit so we treated the other 2 with safeguard and I built a new pen 14x11 (didn't have room for bigger) on the up-water side of the chicken pens so they could be totally separated. Everything was great.
Then 5 days ago another of the turkeys had yellow poop. We started amoxicillin (the only antibiotic we had access to at the time) and dewormed at the 10 day mark with safeguard again. We began mixing cayenne in to the water for the amoxicillin drench we are giving just cause we figure it couldn't hurt. The yellow poop continued to get worse and worse and was pure water with yellow strings in it 2 days ago. She was still coming out for treats, eating and drinking on her own and we were hopeful she would recover. She did not. Went out this morning after battling it for 4 days and found her dead. The other turkey shows no signs/symptoms of anything wrong with it at all (except for a few hours after deworming it passes some horribly black diarrhea but that happened the first time as well).
Now, background out of the way, on to my point. What do I do now? We need to get more turkeys to be with this one so it isn't alone, but has the new place I built already been contaminated to the point that I will simply continue to pass blackhead to others that I bring in? I have put out barn lime (just plain old powdered limestone) on the ground to dry up any droppings and wet spots in the hope that it will dry up/kill the cecal worms and thereby the protozoa too but I can find no information at all on what to do after blackhead in your population when keeping turkeys in open ground pens. We don't have a spot or the finances to continue to build pens so...anyone have any ideas or experiences to share?
A few days later, one of the turkeys was dead in the pen. It had been running around that morning eating treats and was dead that afternoon. I started looking around the pen and found some piles of yellow tinted poop. Next stop was the forums and I found plenty of stuff on blackhead (eventually) and did a necropsy. I was pretty sure that was the culprit so we treated the other 2 with safeguard and I built a new pen 14x11 (didn't have room for bigger) on the up-water side of the chicken pens so they could be totally separated. Everything was great.
Then 5 days ago another of the turkeys had yellow poop. We started amoxicillin (the only antibiotic we had access to at the time) and dewormed at the 10 day mark with safeguard again. We began mixing cayenne in to the water for the amoxicillin drench we are giving just cause we figure it couldn't hurt. The yellow poop continued to get worse and worse and was pure water with yellow strings in it 2 days ago. She was still coming out for treats, eating and drinking on her own and we were hopeful she would recover. She did not. Went out this morning after battling it for 4 days and found her dead. The other turkey shows no signs/symptoms of anything wrong with it at all (except for a few hours after deworming it passes some horribly black diarrhea but that happened the first time as well).
Now, background out of the way, on to my point. What do I do now? We need to get more turkeys to be with this one so it isn't alone, but has the new place I built already been contaminated to the point that I will simply continue to pass blackhead to others that I bring in? I have put out barn lime (just plain old powdered limestone) on the ground to dry up any droppings and wet spots in the hope that it will dry up/kill the cecal worms and thereby the protozoa too but I can find no information at all on what to do after blackhead in your population when keeping turkeys in open ground pens. We don't have a spot or the finances to continue to build pens so...anyone have any ideas or experiences to share?
I have blackhead here too, and to keep outbreaks to a minimum, I keep my poults and peafowl off of the dirt until they are three months old and this really seems to help.
