This disease is often mistaken for blackhead in grown turkeys. It may result from an excessive use of tainted food, mouldy bread or mouldy grain, impure water, extreme heat, exposure in damp weather, filthy quarters and general indigestion, poison, or any inflammatory affliction of the intestines or the stomach.
The symptoms are loose droppings of different colors which befoul the feathers, lassitude, and a loss of condition. In dysentery which results from a diseased condition of the intestines, the droppings are more frothy and mingled with blood, and attended with rapid prostration.
A form of diarrhea essentially different from the two described, occurs in an old female turkey in which a white discharge comes away more or less constantly, often dribbling out, and keeps the feathers about the vent incrusted with a white, chalk-like deposit. It is doubtless due to some derangement in the shell-making function, and can best be treated by promoting the general health and using the means noted below.
Treatment: Have your pharmacist make up pills made of a mixture of five grains of powdered chalk, five of rhubarb, and five of cayenne pepper, adding a half grain of opium in severe cases. Give two pills daily. Another good remedy is camphorated spirits of barley meal, three to six grains for each bird according to age, or ten to twenty drops of the same may be put in a pint of the drink. For mild cases and in the early stages of others, powdered chalk on boiled rice may be sufficient. The remedy last named is recommended for the white discharge of old females, for which the pills described above should be used as well as a little lime water, made by allowing about ½ teaspoonful air-slacked lime to ½ pint water for a bird. Dissolve and then pour off the liquid for them to drink instead of plain water.
Restrict the drink in all forms of these disorders and put into it a little tincture of iron (four drops to a gallon of water).
Dysentery with blood discharges is a serious disorder. It is best to give a teaspoonful of castor oil, followed with three to six drops of laudanum every few hours, supplying an exclusive diet of mild food. It is important that the afflicted bird be kept quiet and apart from the flock, especially in dysentery.
Isolate the afflicted bird when you are at all doubtful regarding the nature of the disorder. Give a couple of tablespoonfuls of ground chalk to a pint of warm mash made from Margaret Mahaney’s Turkey Feed. This will also be found beneficial at any time to the laying turkey hens of five or six years old. Allow one pint of mash to four turkeys three times a day. A little camphor, about the size of a good sized bean, to four turkeys will hasten the recovery; dropped in the drinking water once a week, will help to keep the birds in good laying condition.
Diarrhea in Little Turkeys
Diarrhea in a little turkey is white, something the same as that trouble in a common chicken, and if you look very carefully you will see that the little legs are dotted with white, and the little turkeys will be lifeless and not appearing to thrive. That is the time to give them Mahaney pills (four to a quart of drinking water for 10 or 11 young turkeys). Boil a piece of meat, grind fine, and put in the feed, and that will help them get back their vitality. A drop of aconite in the drinking water on damp days will help to prevent fever of any kind.