When any doubt is felt on the contagious nature of a disease, the affected turkey should be removed from the flock until the possible danger is passed. When a bird dies from an unknown cause, it should be opened and the condition of the internal organs noted, along with a study of their condition as taken up in the following pages of treatment.
In general, it may be observed that the presence of lice and mites is often the cause of weakness and loss of condition, especially if the turkeys are allowed to roost with the common hens.
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.
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.