Any one with an idea? He still seems to be about the same. Maybe slightly less severe with the neck issue, whatever it really is.
He will be one of the culls for Thanksgiving. I'm pretty sure I have 7 toms and 9 hens. Got 2 hens pre-sold. May send one hen to my parents since they won't travel due to Covid, and their 50th anniversary will be the Saturday after Thanksgiving. That would leave me with 6 hens, so I need to cull it down to 1 tom reasonably quickly.
Interesting, I haven't dealt much with turkeys, but my guess would be something stuck in the crop making it painful to extent its neck. Are you able to feel around and see if there's any out of place lumps?
Or maybe an unseen injury. Or something stuck to the back of its neck to make it reflexively lower its head?
If you're culling the bird anyway and have a few extra minutes to do an autopsy, please post if you find anything!
Quick update. When I was away for elk hunting that turkey got tangled in the poultry netting (not hot). The others pecked him so severely that by the time it was noticed my wife deemed the injuries almost certainly fatal. So she processed him and I wound up sending him to my parents for Thanksgiving. As I wasn't there for the dispatch (got home 3 days later) I wasn't able to properly inspect him, but his neck and liver looked very normal when I got home.
I'm guessing it was some injury rather than any disease that was nearly healed by the time he was dispatched.
Those are the largest trousers in the world! Especially when next to this ad:
2024 Permaculture Adventure Bundle (now a special for october 2025)