Turkey Problems

Aortic Rupture. When pushed for rapid weight gain, 8- to 20-week-old turkeys--often the nicest toms may succumb rapidly to massive internal hemorrhage. This occurs when a weakening and then a tear develops in either the heart wall or the aorta, the largest blood vessel exiting from the heart.

Limiting feed intake during the most critical period, 16 to 20 weeks, helps prevent this condition.

Blackhead.

More correctly termed histomoniasis after the name of the causative protozoan, Histomonas meleagridis, this disease is troublesome particularly to turkeys. Outbreaks also occur in chickens and captive game birds. Affected turkeys are found to have large cheesy laminated cores in the cecal pouches and large and small irregularly-round, slightly sunken yellowish-gray, greenish or red areas of degeneration on the surface of the liver.

Three of the most important preventive considerations are 1) routine use of antihistomonal drugs in feed, 2) separating turkeys from chickens, and 3) pen designs that keep turkeys from finding and eating earthworms. Routine worming for cecal worms also is advisable in the total control of the blackhead.

Types of Enteritis

Coronaviral Enteritis. Death losses in young poults can reach levels of 50 percent or more when they are stricken with this persistent intestinal virus disease. Good nursing care (supplemental heat, antibiotics, vitamins, and hygiene) can help cut losses.

Prevention is accomplished best by all in, all-out management systems and thorough cleaning and disinfection after complete depopulation. There are no vaccines for turkey coronaviral enteritis.

Due to a distinct group of avian adenoviruses, hemorrhagic enteritis can produce fatal bloody diarrhea in 15 percent or more of a flock of young turkeys. Typically occurring around 10 to 12 weeks of age, the main symptoms are sudden onset, depression, bloody droppings and a concurrent drop in feed and water consumption.

The intestine is filled with bloody material. The spleen, as in marble spleen disease of pheasants, may be swollen and mottled.

There is no particularly satisfactory treatment; in fact, avoid sudden changes in feed or management during an outbreak. Antibiotics reportedly may increase severity of this disease.

Preventive vaccines and emergency antisera preparations are available in some States. Contact your nearest State diagnostic laboratory for guidance.

Other turkey problems include erysipleas, fowl cholera, roundworms, ticks, avian influenza, hexamitiasis, paratyphoid infection, arizonosis, colibacillosis, and aspergillosis.

Game Bird Ills

Cecal Worms. Although the causative nematode, Heterakis gallinae, is known to live in the ceca of chickens, turkeys, guinea fowl, quail, and waterfowl, it is particularly damaging to the ceca of pheasants. To prevent cecal worms, game birds should be managed to keep them from eating earthworms or eating off the floor. When this is not possible through rearing on wire, new ground or on an impervious surface, the flock should be treated periodically with a commercially available wormer.

Keep in mind that the cecal worm egg often carries along in its interior the histomonal protozoan that causes blackhead in peafowl, grouse,quail, wild turkeys, and possibly other types and game birds.

Gapeworms.

This unique Y-shaped reddish parasite, Syngamus trachea, lives in the windpipes of pheasants, peafowl, guinea fowl, partridges, quail, waterfowl, turkeys, chickens, and other fowl. Affected birds show open-mouth breathing, head shaking, grunting or other signs of labored breathing. Severe infestations can cause suffocation, particularly in the young whose windpipes are narrower.

Pen-raised pheasants may soon be able to benefit from preventive levels of thiabendazole in their feed.

As with numerous other parasitic worms, it is important to give attention to management details that prevent or at least minimize a flock's exposure to fecal droppings, and such intermediate hosts as earthworms, slugs and snails.

Marble Spleen Disease.

The adenovirus causing this disease of pheasants is closely related, but not identical, to that causing hemorrhagic enteritis of turkeys.

Severe lung congestion with bloody watery fluid is a prominent finding in pheasants found dead with this disease. Fatally afflicted pheasants usually die very suddenly. Mortality is highest as a rule from 10 weeks of age to maturity, and ranges from 5 to 15 percent.

There are no treatments. Outbreaks generally run their course and subside within a month. Marble spleen vaccine may be available in some States on an experimental basis. Contact your nearest diagnostic laboratory or State veterinarian for guidance.

Quail Disorders

Quail Bronchitis. This highly acute, frequently fatal respiratory disease of quail is believed to be caused by an adenovirus. The first outbreak in a flock can be very severe with sneezing, coughing, and loss of appetite spreading to all members. It is very damaging to young quail. Mortality may approach 40 percent. Some survivors develop twisting or bending of the neck.

The disease is produced by a completely different virus than that causing infectious bronchitis in chickens. Consequently, bronchitis vaccines for chickens are of no value in preventing quail bronchitis.

Isolation from other quail flocks and the use of two-year-old breeders have helped prevent serious outbreaks.