A SURVEY OF 60 TURKEY FLOCKS EXHIBITING HEPATIC FOCI TAKEN AT TIME OFPROCESSING

Fifty turkey flocks including 24 16-week-old male flocks and 26 20-wee k-old male flocks were sampled at rime of processing. Hepatic foci wer e cultured for aerobic and anaerobic bacteria. The majority of these d id not have any bacteria recovered from the lesions. Of the bacteria t hat were recovered, most were facultative anaerobes, with Escherichia coli and Salmonella sp. comprising the most common isolates. All of th e birds examined (300 total) for parasites were infected with varying levels of Ascaridia dissimilis. The highest average worm burden was fo und in the 20-week-old flocks. Heterakis gallinarum were found in only a few of the younger turkeys (16 weeks old) and not in any of the old er birds. An analysis of the spatial distribution of the hepatic foci performed in an additional 10 turkey flocks (500 birds) revealed that, although present on the surface of all regions of the liver, 56.12% o f the lesions were found on the left hepatic lobe and 43.88% were foun d on the right hepatic lobe.