Science / Medicine : 843,000 Turkeys a Year Die of Heart Attacks

As if turkeys didn’t have enough to worry about with Thanksgiving arriving this week, researchers at Pennsylvania State University said last week that at least 843,000 of the birds die annually of heart attacks. The problem is a condition called round heart syndrome, in which the birds’ hearts can expand to four times the normal size, bringing about cardiac arrest or kidney failure.

Those conditions can send a turkey into convulsions that are so frightening to healthy turkeys that they, too, die of heart attacks. “It is not uncommon to go into a bird house and see the afflicted bird lying dead, surrounded by three or four other birds that died because of the hysteria caused,” said poultry scientist Andrew G. Yersin.

Yersin said the disease costs U.S. turkey producers as much as $1.6 million a year.

Researcher Robert Wideman said the scientists hope to learn why so many turkeys develop the syndrome and to see if changing breeding patterns might eliminate the problem. The researchers said changing an afflicted bird’s diet and living conditions may allow it to survive with round heart syndrome for the 14 weeks needed to reach maturity.