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.

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.

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.

TO DETECT BLACKHEAD

Blackhead is the disease to be most dreaded by the turkey raisers in New England and all over the country.

When you go into the turkey house in the morning, go directly to the droppings board and see if you find any yellow droppings. If you do, look carefully over your flock. It will not take you long to discover the bird that has blackhead. The head is an unhealthy dusky gray, and the bird will mope around, apparently wanting to eat and yet not doing so. Then you can decide that you have blackhead in your flock.

TREATMENT OF FULL GROWN TURKEYS

Take that bird away immediately; disinfect her head and under the wings with salve; massage the crop gently to see if it is full of undigested food. If it is, give a scant half teaspoonful of epsom salts in a little water. In about an hour’s time give a tablespoonful of olive oil and follow with a quarter of a teaspoonful salicylate of soda in two tablespoonfuls of warm water. After the crop is emptied put her in a box, say a good sized packing case, with plenty of straw, and cover with burlap. Give a teaspoonful of warm whisky and a tablespoonful of milk mixed together. This will keep up the vitality of the bird. A long necked milk testing bottle comes in very handy in a flock of any kind of fowl, for you can place the neck down below the windpipe and inject the liquids into the crop without any choking on the part of the fowl. Then watch and see if the droppings are yellow. If they are give one of the Mahaney Blackhead pills every hour until the droppings become normal. You can place the pill on the tongue of the turkey and make her swallow it. If there is nothing in the crop except a brash of sour wind, give the pills and hot milk and whiskey at once.

Be sure to keep the bird warm for a few days, and then disinfect before she goes out with the rest of the flock. Look over the droppings board every morning and see if there are any yellow droppings. Use plenty of lime. Twice a week, in the morning, give sulphate of iron, powdered, (one level teaspoonful in a gallon of water in an earthen dish). The other days, at night, give salicylate of soda in the same amount in the drinking water. This will keep your flock in good condition.

BLACKHEAD IN YOUNG TURKEYS

The first symptom of blackhead in the young turkeys has the appearance of a common cold in the head. The turkey will sniff and water will sometimes come from the nose. The loss of appetite is apparent. The wings droop and when you let the turkeys out of the coops, the one affected will drag itself along behind the rest of the flock. I take that bird away from the rest. I disinfect the head and under the wings with my salve. Rub the salve lightly on the head. Hold the turkey gently across the back, press the wings down to the side. If you are not very gentle with them, and very careful, you are liable to break the wings.

The moment you see one become lifeless, with dragging steps and loss of appetite, disinfect the whole flock with the salve twice a week. Dissolve in an earthen dish four or five of the Margaret Mahaney Turkey Pills in a little warm water; then mix the solution in a quart of drinking water and give to the young turkeys to drink. This, repeated every day, with the straw well aired and kept clean, and the coop dry and water-proof, will make them show a marked improvement in three days. I never lose a young turkey. They thrive just as well as little chickens, and I think they are just as hardy.

As vermin is one of the enemies of young turkeys, use the salve twice a week always, and use it in the morning. Do not shut them up after putting on my salve because it is very strong. Let it evaporate before the little chickens go to bed at night, and you will have no vermin. There is an old saying about a louse in the head of a turkey which enters the brain and causes blackhead. I know very well that that does not cause blackhead, as this disease comes from a common cold, which descends to the bowels and liver and kills the turkey after a few days’ suffering if not relieved.

Treatment of a Common Cold.

Blackhead starts from a common cold. When you have a bird in your flock afflicted with a cold, place a small teaspoonful of Epsom Salts to one gallon of water. Do this three or four days in succession and put plenty of lime around your turkey houses. I put lime on the droppings boards every day; it will kill the disease in no time and do no injury to the turkey. Of course I put clean straw in my turkey house in damp weather every other day as the straw becomes damp and is very liable to breed disease.

Give this Epsom Salts treatment in the hot weather whether the birds show symptoms of disease or not. It keeps their blood cool and avoids the tendency to disease.

The time for blackhead season is in what is commonly called “dog days,” that is, mid-summer. The weather is heavy and dark and is very injurious to young turkeys. That is the time you must keep your coops good and dry and give plenty of green stuff, with aconite in the drinking water about twice a week to keep down any fever. Three drops in a pint of water is all I give them as aconite is very poisonous. If you have any sting nettle at the time be sure to feed it, as sting nettle is one of the greatest aids to success in raising young turkeys.

When the turkey dies of blackhead the crop becomes apparently black and inflamed, and is very foul. The liver is enlarged, and has white or yellowish spots all over it. In some places it has the appearance of being eaten away. Underneath the liver, next to the back of the bird and around the heart you will find a brownish substance, just the same as you would find in a person who dies from peritonitis. You will also find in what is called the second stomach, that is, the bowel leading to the gizzard, a large core. Sometimes this will be very dark brownish yellow or ochre color, mingled with blood. This core forms a stoppage, and unless it is removed, is certain death for the turkey.

I have had turkeys die with what is commonly called in human beings, “appendicitis”, as the appendix was matterated and badly swollen. In fact, in a bad case of blackhead all the bowels of the turkey become swollen. The gizzard is twice its natural size, the abdomen becomes swollen and black and the odor is very obnoxious. In a bad case of this kind there is nothing that can be done, the disease having become too far advanced, and that is why one ought to watch turkeys very closely. If the turkey is taken in time and Margaret Mahaney’s pills given, and the turkey is kept warm, (for they will take the disease first with a chill just the same as a human being would take malaria) there is no need of any loss in the flock from blackhead. All the colleges of agriculture have diagnosed the case as a parasite on the intestines, but I have thoroughly investigated that theory, and wish to say that I have found no grounds for such a belief.