A family friend told me that when I first started raising turkeys and ran into trouble with them. He passed away a couple of weeks before Christmas :cry2: , and we always called him the "Bird Man", if you had a question, concern or trouble you called him. He could tell you what was wrong and how to fix it.
He told me that feeding corn to growing turkeys will cause them to go blind and it will also not allow for proper bone growth and they will get spraddle legged. Mainly occurs in young poults.
He also told me to start them on finely minced hard boiled eggs for the first couple of days. It helps prevent that paste up on the vent. Then start adding the Turkey starter.
For chickens you do the same thing, but add corn meal to theirs, does the same thing.
I lost a bunch of chicks one spring. Called him up and we must have spent an hour or more on the phone talking birds. Mainly him talking and myself learning.
If you ever get chicks and the weather is really cold add 1 tablespoon of sugar to warm water in the chicks waterer and just give them water for the first hour or two.
I do that with all of my chicks no matter the breed and have not lost one to being chilled since.