Margaret Mahaney Talks About Turkeys

by Margaret Mahaney

MY FIRST SUCCESSFUL FIGHT AGAINST BLACKHEAD

When I first started to raise turkeys, and one came down with blackhead, I thought that there was no cure for her. I did all I possibly could, and if she died, I judged that she had to and that there was absolutely nothing that could be done to prevent it.

One year I brought two handsome pullets in from Kentucky. They were fine, strong handsome birds, well marked, with splendid barrings, and a beautiful bronze. I grew extremely fond of them. When the spring of the year came on, about the last of March, around laying time, one of those two birds came down with blackhead and I determined that I would make a fight for her life.

She was an extremely sick bird. I took her into the house, placed her in the back hall, in a cast-off oval shaped clothes basket. I put soft burlap under her and wrapped her up warmly. I had a good knowledge of homeopathic remedies, and I started to cure bowel and liver troubles. The fever I kept down with aconite by giving a drop in a little water every hour. I stayed by the side of that turkey all night long. There were times when she would scream with pain, and then I placed her feet in water as hot as she could bear it with plenty of mustard in it, and allowed the water to come up as high as the first joint of her legs. I allowed her to stand in that about ten minutes at a time, and then I dried her feet and legs and placed her back in the basket. She would be very weak after this treatment, but seemed easier. At other times she would become weak and lifeless, and I would then take her up in my arms, go out-of-doors and let her have the benefit of the cool air. The fight went on in this way until four o’clock in the morning, when she opened her eyes, raised her head, looked up at me and chirped a little. I decided then and there that there was such a thing as curing blackhead.

I did not know then so much about the stoppage in the bowels. I did know, however, that nothing had passed through her bowels. I gave her a little warm whisky and milk, some more of my remedies, and then went for a couple of hours’ rest myself. When I went to her again about two hours afterward, the red had begun to flow back into her head, the fever had left her, and her pulse was normal. The pulse of a turkey begins to beat just above the crop and in case of death, will gradually creep up until, just before the breath leaves the bird, it will have reached a point under the throat. I kept the pulse in this bird down to the middle of the neck; I never let it get any further. There were times when I had to place a cloth dipped in ice water on her head, but I was fighting for the life of my little pet, and she seemed to realize what I was doing. She was very weak all the morning. I took her up, placed her out on the lawn in the sun, and she staggered to her feet about twelve o’clock of that day, and then a solid core came from her bowels. This had lodged in the cecum. At that time I knew very little about this trait of the disease. Attached to the core was a part of the lining of the intestine. The turkey hen was very weak for days. One thing in her favor was that she had an empty crop, and I immediately fed her a tablespoonful of cold water in which was dissolved four grains of common alum. That was given in order to form a skin and harden the sore and raw place in the bowel after the bird had passed the core. The turkey hen did not fully recover for three or four days.

FRIENDS (MISS MAHANEY AND “GRANDMA CLEAVES”)

That turkey hen is about one of the best I have on my place. I call her Grandma Cleaves. The Agricultural colleges maintain that a bird that has once been afflicted with blackhead is unfit for breeding stock. I have in my possession a young tom that was hatched out the fifteenth day of July, 1912, by that bird. He weighs 31 lbs. and is well developed in every way. She laid three litters of eggs last summer, and sat on the last litter, hatched twelve turkeys and raised eleven in that flock. In my opinion, a bird that has passed through blackhead is one of the best and strongest birds to breed from. I never had a bird come down the second season with blackhead. It is just like any other common fever that is contagious, and can afflict a person but once.

After winning that fight, I made up my mind that something could be done for blackhead, and from that time on I have had great success in battling against this disease.

My breeding grounds are not so far distant but that the people of Massachusetts can come to see me. I would be very glad to show them my runs and turkeys and my methods of breeding.