Rearing little poults (From Smallholder)

Rearing little poults

7:10am Tuesday 1st June 2010 in

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Poults that have hatched via an incubator need special care for a few weeks to enable them to thrive. Once they have thoroughly dried out and their down is fluffy, place them in an electric cosy-brooder or under a suspended heat lamp.

The height of the lamp should be adjusted so that the poults have sufficient heat beneath it to be comfortable and relaxed.

The lamp should be switched on for a while before the poults are in place so that the area can warm up. Put your hand on the shavings under the lamp to see if it is comfortably warm.

The poults themselves will also be a guide because they will soon let you know if the temperature is wrong. If they huddle together under the lamp then it is too high and poults are cold.

Sometimes you will see poults standing under a lamp and so tired that they are swaying but because their instinct is to get closer to the heat they will not lie down. If the lamp is too low and it's too hot underneath it the poults will get close enough to feel the heat but will also keep a distance.

In this situation they are more likely to be in a circle just beyond the immediate heat. Contended poults will be evenly spread under the heat lamp, each sleeping under the required warmth provided.

For the first few weeks the poults will need to be in a small enclosure in the accommodation area so that they cannot stray away from either the warmth, the feed or the water. The space allocated should be sufficient for exercise, plus room for the drinkers and feeders, with ample space under the actual heat lamp for sleeping.

This area can be contained by providing a temporary barrier made of cardboard or plywood but make sure it is stable and cannot fall and squash any poult beneath it. Also, any flammable material should be sufficiently away from the heat lamp not to be a fire risk.

A contained area will also prevent draughts affecting the poults which is very important as they can so easily become chilled at this early stage of life.

Make sure that each poult knows how to eat and drink. Turkeys are sometimes a little slow at doing this. As you place each poult into the brooding area, dip the beak into the drinker of water and usually it will sup, then when the head is lifted it will swallow.

Once they have done this they will be fine and will then drink quite readily themselves. It is vital that poults do learn to drink quickly because they can soon suffer gut problems if they are starved of water.

. Even stepping or slipping in a saucer of water will wet the poult's down and it will soon chill and perish. A narrow lipped drinker as used by chicks is ideal for very young turkeys.

To encourage eating, finely chop up a hard boiled egg and mix it in with the turkey starter crumbs.

The tiny birds will copy what each other is doing and there will soon be a rush to eat the feed. Giving turkey starter crumbs is essential because chick crumbs do not contain sufficient protein for young turkeys. Also, some chick crumb formulations contain the coccidiostat Salinomycin, which could kill the poults.

Occasionally you may get a poult at about three to four days old that keeps falling over onto its back. When this happens it cannot get up by itself. I do not know what causes this but I suspect that it could be something to do with nutrition.

Young turkeys grow extremely quickly and if they are not taking in sufficient sustenance to keep up with this rapid growth they will become weak. I have overcome this by isolating the poult and making sure it feeds regularly.

It may even be necessary to put tiny pieces of egg and crumb mix into the beak and once it has swallowed, dip its beak in water so that it drinks. Repeat this every quarter of an hour or so.

Placing it in a woollen jumper in a box, so that it cannot fall over and keeping the box wherever you are working is the easiest way of seeing that the poult gets the attention it needs.

Looked after in this way the poult usually recovers and is quite strong again within two to three days, when it can be returned to the others.