Cephalexin Dose for injured Wild Turkey

"And Plumb's Veterinary Drug Handbook says:

35-50 mg/kg by mouth four times a day (Clubb 1986)40-100 mg/kg by mouth every six hours (Hoeffer 1995)"

I did a controlled burn on Monday and Wednesday, and both days when I walked past an area with a LOT of baby Madrone trees, there was an adult wild turkey hen. She is limping medium badly. I would like to see her survive.

The last time I saw a wild turkey limping, I had the urge to run and catch it. A few weeks later, I found a wild turkey skeleton. I wished I had done more.

That first line is from this link https://www.backyardchickens.com/thr...ickens.827968/

From experience holding chickens, I estimate the wild turkey hen at 10 pounds. 4 to 5 kilograms. Doing the math from Plumb's Vet Handbook, 200 milligrams of Cephalexin would be a reasonable dose.

I have 500 milligram Cephalexin for people and it appears consistent with vet medicine to give this 'people medicine' to birds.

To be clear, this is NOT in the category of feeding a farm bird antibiotics as part of its food. I'm not sure exactly why farms do that. I just want the bird to overcome its injury and heal and either re-join its troupe, or hang out with the chickens and eat their food.

Have any of the people here had a pet bird that they gave Cephalexin too? If so, what was the dosing? I would like to hear about adverse effects also, if there were any.

Anticipating the question, the bird is on the side of a mountain. I can't bring it to a vet or a vet to it. But I can bring it a can of corn, for starters.

Back to birds. For the heck of it, I attach a photo of 2 Rhode Island Reds sitting on a pile of old computer stuff. They love to roost there.

Thanks for your concern for this bird.

I wonder if the Wild Bird Rescue in Santa Rosa would be able to advise you.

Bird Rescue Center
Wildlife Rescue Service
Santa Rosa, CA · (707) 523-2473
Closed ⋅ Opens 9AM Sun

Sonoma County Wildlife Rescue
Wildlife Rescue Service
Petaluma, CA · (707) 992-0274
Closed ⋅ Opens 9AM Tue

Don't need to give the bird Cephalexin, an antibiotic, unless injury is an infection site or if some sort of bacterial infection is present. Pus, swelling, discoloration, all signs of infection. It may just be limping from a sprain or break or muscle injury. Give it what ever you feed the chickens, especially scratch, it will respond to the hi-protein food. A cheaper and better broad spectrum antibiotic would be Terramycin, easily available from a feed store in a form used for oral administration to livestock