On episode 22, we discuss flip-overs and tip-overs in poult's and everything you can do to prepare, prevent, and care for your poult's in their first few days on your farm. Flip-overs occur when poult's 'flip-over' onto their backs, typically due to lack of feed and water, and being over-heated or under-heated. Tip-overs occur when poult's 'tip-over' onto their sides, typically due to feed build-up in their crop, and lack of water consumption to aid in digestion. Joining Sheila and Gretta on this episode of The Turkey Talk Show, is William Alexander, a Technical Sales Representative for Hybrid Turkeys with extensive experience in turkey breeding all over North America, South America, and Europe; John Menges from Menges Consulting, who brings 37 years of industry expertise; and Andria Volkmann, a turkey farmer with 22 years of hands-on experience, particularly in brooder barn management.
On episode 22, we discuss flip-overs and tip-overs in poult's and everything you can do to prepare, prevent, and care for your poult's in their first few days on your farm. Flip-overs occur when poult's 'flip-over' onto their backs, typically due to lack of feed and water, and being over-heated or under-heated. Tip-overs occur when poult's 'tip-over' onto their sides, typically due to feed build-up in their crop, and lack of water consumption to aid in digestion. Joining Sheila and Gretta on this episode of The Turkey Talk Show, is William Alexander, a Technical Sales Representative for Hybrid Turkeys with extensive experience in turkey breeding all over North America, South America, and Europe; John Menges from Menges Consulting, who brings 37 years of industry expertise; and Andria Volkmann, a turkey farmer with 22 years of hands-on experience, particularly in brooder barn management.
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William, John, and Andria discuss what they do and have seen what works best to prevent and care for poult's that flip-over/tip-over. William shares his best tips when receiving new poults, which is to prepare your brooder barn for the worst case scenario. When receiving new poult's, they can be of varying health condition so it is best to be ready and pre-pared for anything that can happen. Best practices include correct ventilation, easy access to feed and water, and the barn being at the correct temperature. The optimum barn temperature is between 103-104 degrees F for the poult's to thrive. Another thing to check is to make sure carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide levels are not too high, especially because heaters are operating at full out-put.
We discuss the specific things that cause birds to flip-over/tip-over such birds experiencing drastic temperature changes either from coming off the truck into the barn to too cold of temperatures, or the farmer heating the barn too quickly while poult's are in there. It is important to properly heat the barn through days in advance because poult's are not able to regulate their body temperature for the first 3.5 days of life. We also discuss another prominent cause of flip-overs/tip-overs is when birds don't have easy access to feed and water and cannot get access to critical nourishment at this stage of life.
One of the best ways to care for birds that do flip-over/tip-over, is to take them out of the general population and put them into a separate, hospital pen to recover. This pen should be away from the high heat area of the barn, very easy access to feed and water mixed with hydration products, and some practices are to put the padding from the delivery boxes on the floor of that pen to help the birds right themselves up.
Documents with this information will be posted on the Turkey Connect app under the 'Farmer Toolbox'.
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This episode is sponsored by Hybrid Turkeys.