May 1, 2007

e are not happy with the poults we ordered from the hatchery this year. In the last 2 years, between Amy, Mary and our homestead, we have spent well over $800 in chicks at this hatchery. Last year our order was fine and I was quite pleased. The chicks and poults grew excellently.

This year is another story. Amy got her Buff Cochins and usually this hatchery in adds a couple more chicks to make sure you get your full order in case there is any problem in transit etc. She ordered 50 of them at $5.00 each day old chick. That is $250 just for her order. They did not toss in a couple extra chicks this year and one died in transit and one that was smaller than the others died the first night. So Amy was out $10 from the start.

*** This part gets graphic, so if you have a weak stomach or little kids, you may not want to scroll down past this part as I have pictures. ***

I ordered turkeys from this hatchery again this year. I got 22 of them, half of Broad Breasted Bronze and the other half Nicholas Whites. I have raised turkey's since 1977, my guy has raised 50-100 of them a year for 13 years. We have raised alot of turkeys between us. They cost us an average of $5 each day old poult. So $100 into turkeys for us this year. 

From day 2, the Nicholas Whites have been prolapsing their rectums and then they are getting pecked on by the other birds and then dying. We are separating the ones which are prolapsing and have them in an infirmary, but alot of them have died. From day 2 to day 10, we have had this problem. Remember, that Amy and I are both veterinary technicians and between us have 27 years worth of experience with many species, including me working with rare endangered African species at a zoo, where I was the lone veterinary technician. We know what a rectal prolapse looks like. 

All the dead ones we have bagged and frozen in case we need to send them off to a pathologist in Abbotsford to necropsy to verify what the problem is (A necropsy is like an autopsy, but a necropsy is on animals, autopsy is on people). I called the hatchery and also sent them multiple pictures, including of all of our poultry facility here. The hatchery has no idea what is going on with these poults. It is 5 days after I initially called them now and I have not gotten a response back, other than when I called them back yesterday. They did not even let me know they got my emails and were working on it. 

I am now on standby. The person I was talking to yesterday, said that they think it is one thing, then they think it is another thing, but she passed my call, my emails and my pictures to her supervisor and boss . My question is... if it may be this.. or it may be that, why is it that NONE of the Bronze are affected? Only the Nicholas Whites which are having problems? From my thinking, it is something wrong with the Nicholas Whites as they are being reared the same way as the Bronze. If it is something environmental, it should be affecting all of them, not just the Nicholas Whites. 

We have lost 6 of the Nicholas White poults so far and 2 of them are in the infirmary. So 8 out of 11 birds should clue in there is a problem, when none of Bronze are having a problem at all. 

Picture Above: Normal Bronze poult bum

Picture Above: This is the most normal looking Nicholas White Bum

WARNING!! Below is where it gets really yucky looking!!!!

Picture Below: This is Nicholas White poult with a prolapsed rectum and that attracts the other birds to start pecking at it as it is different. It is mostly the Nicholas Whites which are pecking on each other. I did see evidence of a Bronze getting into the act once. It started at Day 2

Picture Below: This is another angle of the same bird

Picture Below: This is yet another angle. All of the birds looked just like this. They then paste up, like you would normally do for paste up problems', but you cannot do much for them as it will continue to compound the problem. So we have had 6 die now and 2 which are separated.

I am hoping that someone from the hatchery will call me today. They were trying to tell me it was too hot.. then too cold..  so it will be interesting to see what they decide the problem is and what they can do for me. But I think we may be done with hatcheries. We are spending too much money and when we have a problem, they are not seemingly right on it. But it all hinges on how fairly the hatchery treats us.

I am still probably bringing turkey hatching eggs up from Washington State, Salt Spring Island and another women from somewhere up here as soon as Krystal finds the other woman's phone number. If we cannot buy the incubator we have heard of locally for sale, we will be building our own and hatching out all of our own chicks.

Hopefully next year we will be hatching:

Bourbon Red, Slate, Sweetgrass and Royal Palm naturally mating turkeys.. and Plymouth Barred Rock, White Chantecler, Buff Cochin, Rhode Island Reds, Dark Brahma and Silver Laced Wyandotte chickens.  After that, I think I will not being in any more breeds. All the breeds of chickens we have are dual purpose, brown egg layers.  All can deal with our cold winter weather (though you have to watch the Rocks and RIR for frostbite on combs). All of these breeds are on the watch to endangered lists on Rare Breeds Canada and American Livestock Conservancy.

Evening Update:

The owner of the hatchery called me this afternoon about 5 pm. He does not really know what is wrong with the turkey's either, but he enlightened me on a few things, I wish I had known before and feel they should let people know. 

He says he thinks maybe the turkey's got too hot at Amy's and then too cold here. Neither Amy or I think that is the answer. He says if they get too hot, they start pecking. This is true, but they started the prolapse thing before they started pecking. He does not think it is a true prolapse as they are too young. Then when they came here the habit for pecking was established. But I also found out that the Nicholas White turkeys are much more fragile and less thrifty than the Bronze are. Apparently the Nicholas Whites cannot handle high elevations with their hearts as they get problems with their left ventricle. They also grow too fast and they need different nutrition than the Bronze, but he does not think it is a nutritional problem we are seeing. Again, he really does not know what the problem is, just thinks maybe we are too hot and ironically at the same time too cold. He said we can send the birds off to a pathologist. I called Amy at the clinic but she thinks it will cost us $70-250 to get it done. I think Amy was looking at the wrong lab price, but we will get it worked out.

The owner of Rochester Hatchery said, he would normally replace lost animals of 10% or greater even if they had been stepped on or whatever, no questions asked, but as Amy and I have a split order, he would not do that this time. So we are out the cost of 7 turkeys now as another one died this afternoon. We will not be placing any more orders with this company again.