My veterinarian is so smart! Do you know what he told me…?
I don’t think too many of you will be asked to examine a Thanksgiving turkey between now and tomorrow, but it never hurts to have a few good veterinary Thanksgiving facts under your belt just in case you need to look smart. Here are few that are bound to wow your clients.
Virgin Birth Turkeys?
Vaccinating turkeys with live virus vaccines for New Castle disease, foul pox, and Rous sarcoma increases the incidence of parthogenisis, a condition when unfertilized eggs give rise to embryos and chicks! A fascinating, bizarre phenomenon. Here’s a great diagram of what the genetics look like.
They’re not turkeys, but they’re still cute
Veterinarians protect the food supply
Veterinarians working for the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) under the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) are responsible for making sure that the turkey meat we eat is safe. Size in turkeys is not a result of hormones, but breeding. Antibiotics are used to treat disease in flocks, but birds must have a ‘withdrawal period’ that eliminates all residues in the meat. FSIS veterinarians inspect both live animals and the slaughtered carcasses of turkeys.
‘Free Range’ is very wide range
Here’s another veterinary Thanksgiving fact. Free Range or Free Roaming is a very broad term and signifies little more than the bird had access to the outside for at least 51% of its life. Foul that have been raised ‘free range’ can be exposed to more overcrowding and unhygienic conditions than birds raised in traditional, commercial ways.
Vet Tech quiz
Young turkeys are called poults. Can you guess which intestinal parasite can kill these youngsters (certain species of this bug can also infect dogs and cats) ? Post your answers in our Facebook feed. We’ll share the correct answer on Thanksgiving Day.
Clients with backyard chickens
Don’t raise young turkeys with chickens. Chickens can be carriers of Histomonas, a protozoan that causes the often- fatal disease Histomoniasis or Blackhead disease.
Well that was a waste of luggage space
The Pilgrims brought turkeys to the New World unaware that the land was teeming with them already. The Spanish introduced the turkey to Europe as far back as the 1500s after their conquest of Mexico and their discovery of its domestication there. Pilgrims brought the domesticated bird back to the Americas where it had originated!
Pass the (baby) turkey
There are more than a dozen different breeds of turkeys available for domestication in the US. Care to raise a few of your own? Pick out a few and get started this spring.
They could have been on the back of a dollar, instead of dinner
Turkeys lost out to the Bald Eagle as the national symbol of pride by ONE congressional vote!