Spiking Mortality of Turkey Poults: 1. Experimental Reproduction in Isolation Facilities

Spiking mortality of turkeys (SMT) is an infectious disease of 5-to-25-day-old turkey poults characterized by acute enteritis and bursal and thymic atrophy. Brooding 1-day-old poults on litter taken from naturally occurring cases successfully reproduced SMT 5 days postexposure. Oral exposure to an organ homogenate made of tissue samples from naturally occurring cases successfully reproduced SMT 5 days postinoculation. Coronaviruses were present in intestinal and bursal contents taken from poults with naturally occurring SMT. They were also present 5 days after exposure in the experimentally reproduced disease. Severe intestinal villus atrophy, bursal follicular lymphoid depletion, and thymic cortical atrophy were present histologically in naturally occurring SMT and in SMT reproduced by either experimental method.