BLACKHEAD
A great many people write to me, saying that they lose their pullets and young turkeys after they have grown the first feathers. I never lose a turkey at that time. I grow my turkeys in runs as you would chickens and it is a beautiful sight to see well onto three hundred healthy, strong turkeys in runs placed side by side. I never have any trouble with my young turkeys. As I said before in another part of my work, blackhead never appears in my flock until the turkey is six and seven months old. When I see any signs of blackhead, I move all my turkeys to new ground, disinfect all my coops with Presto Disinfectant, and start in to cure my blackhead, as described on page [79]. I wait for a wet day, and put lime on the ground that I moved the coops from, as turkeys are very apt to return to their old dwelling place. In that way, I keep down blackhead. It is a very simple disease if taken in time and easily cured.
When I first started raising turkeys, my little pullets died after they were feathered and about seven or eight weeks old. Some of them would not shoot the red until they were weighing two and a half pounds. Their heads would be dark, and their steps slow and dragging. As I said before, the blood lay dormant in the liver, and thus started blackhead. If a turkey does not throw the red, when seven or eight weeks old, on close examination it will be found that the abdomen is dark and of a bluish cast. The flesh is not in good condition, whereas in a young healthy turkey that has thrown the red at that age, the flesh will be pure and white.