Relative importance of young and mature turkeys and chickens in contaminating soil with Histomonas-bearing Heterakis eggs

Young chickens were 16 times as important as mature chickens in contaminating soil with Histomonas-bearing Heterakis eggs. Young turkeys, however, produced so few such eggs as to be of no importance. Mature turkeys were nearly as important as young chickens in contaminating soil with Heterakis eggs capable of transmitting Histomonas, but the histomonads they transmitted did not produce as severe a form of disease.