# Turkey Questions



## Ohiogal (Mar 15, 2007)

I've had chickens for a few years now, and are well acquainted on their habits. I however, know nothing about turkeys, and this year I ordered 15 Midget Whites, so I have some to save over for next year (laying pairs) and also Thanksgiving dinner for family.
Do turkeys know to "go home" at night back to their coop?
Do turkeys drown themselves in a sudden T-storm?
Do turkeys attack and flog like roosters do?
Do turkeys require anything different than hens for housing?
I was planning on building a tallish shedroof styled coop, with attached pen, to raise them in, and then free range them when I'm at home on the farm.
Thanks for any and all help on these questions!


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## Wisconsin Ann (Feb 27, 2007)

Do they go home...sort of. Keep them in the new house for at least a week so they imprint on it. Only feed them INSIDE the house. Of course they'll go eat grass and such, but the feed is inside so they may come back for that. What happens is they go wandering around, and then suddenly it's dark and they think "oh, bed time" and roost wherever they are at the time. USUALLY they will head home in the evening and you just have to **** them inside. If they are housed with a couple of chickens, the chickens go to roost in the coop and the turkeys follow.

Do they drown in rainstorms...NO

Do they attack and flog...yes and no. They most likely won't try to breed you. Or anyone. BUT they are terribly curious and will try to peck at anything shiney. During breeding season, adult toms may take exception to you and decide you're a threat. They'll display and try to get you go away before attacking. 

Do they require anything different....Heavier roosts  Toms tend to like something LOW to roost on. Nests for laying eggs are on the ground or just a few inches up. Large enough for the hen to stand up in and turn around. Doesn't need a roof, although the more cave like, the better. Other than that....hmmm...

Since turkeys do NOT scratch around, the bedding will need to be turned by you. OR you can house some chickens in with them. Hay works really well for bedding, btw. 

Higher protein for feed...28%ish.

They do like to roost on the highest thing around...I had bunches of the crazy birds trying to roost up on top of hte 7foot tall hoop coop. sigh. They can jump crazy high, and fly quite well. Although I think midgets are more likely to be pen-able.

Good luck with them


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## beewench (Mar 5, 2010)

I thought I read somewhere not to house Turkeys and chickens together? Is that not true? Also, will turkey's (hen and tom's) get along with a rooster?

-=Sarah
www.beewench.blogspot.com


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## Jennifer L. (May 10, 2002)

beewench said:


> I thought I read somewhere not to house Turkeys and chickens together? Is that not true? Also, will turkey's (hen and tom's) get along with a rooster?
> 
> -=Sarah
> www.beewench.blogspot.com


The deal with turkeys and chickens together is the disease Blackhead. Chickens can carry the disease and it doesn't affect them much. Turkeys, however, die of it quite often. So if you bring in infected chickens and house them with your turkeys, you could lose your turks. The organism that causes it (a protazoa) can live in the soil for years, too. However, if you don't have the organism in your soil, and you get chicks from a hatchery, like probably most people do, then there is absolutely no reason not to house them together.

Also, there are medications for Blackhead today that didn't exist years ago when it became a problem, so the general rule simply became "don't mix them". If it's a big concern to you, check with your county agent to see if they know of Blackhead in your area. They should be able to tell you.

As far as chickens and turkeys getting along, generally turkeys ignore chickens. The exception is if a rooster combs his hair the wrong way and gives sass to a hen turkey, then the hen turkey will fight him and chase him around for awhile. No one ever really gets hurt, though. I've never seen a tom do anything to a chicken at all--just supremely uninterested in them. I usually have some chicken "yardbirds" that follow the turkey flock around the yard. They just trail along behind like they are part of the herd bringing up the rear.

Jennifer


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## Danaus29 (Sep 12, 2005)

A couple things I discovered during my short time with turkeys;
they will scratch the ground, the turks killed half my struggling lawn last year
They prefer to roost in trees
My turks _hated_ me and dd. The last one did attack us frequently. He became dinner, I sold the others.

The turks I had were Narragansettes. Nasty nasty birds. Would I do it again? ONLY if I had separate and proper housing to keep them away from the ducks and inside their own pen and coop.


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## Serena (Apr 28, 2004)

I LOVE my Narragansets!
My tom is calm and gentle...will eat outof your hand, pretty much ignores the chickens except if a rooster gets brave and challenges him to show how macho he is... instant stompling if hes too dumb to run for his life.... my previous tom though... I kept finding my almost grown chickens dead in the yard or dieing... Hubby walked out one day to find him systematically stompling them to death... When one stopped struggling he calmly walked over to another and started stomping it... Of course he was stupid and comiited suicide by flying into the dog run... My chicken nestbox is an open top rabbit nestbox for now and my hen lays in it after the chickens. They stay in the fence mostly... The hen wanders out sometimes to dustbathe in the garden grrrr.... I only feed at night.. htat way I can lure them off the roof of the barn and inside it. 
I have some young banty chickenss that are now out with the crowd part time and Poor ol Tom doesnt see them and steps on them while walking... Its like a T-rex and a mouse.. Ill hear deperate squeaking and look over as he takes the next step and a frumpled little chick runs off shaking its feathers. He displays ALL the time... usually following the clueless femail around. Occasionally he follows me around trying to convince me hes really studly... Hubby calls him my boyfriend... If you whistle for him he gobbles in response... I hatched my first poult this week from our eggs... cant wait to have a whole flock of them! The next 3 weeks I have a ton more eggs coming ready to hatch hopefully. My hatch rate this time was aweful. 1 of 6 eggs... 4 stated growing... one hatched 2 pipped and died and one is pipped internally but not externally... been that way for 4 days... still moving but I dont have much hope of it hatching by now.... darn it... Hubby would happily get rid of the chickens and just have the turkeys if I'd let him... SOon we are going to built some big flight pens hopefully if we hatch enough chicks... I hope to raise some for the table eventually and to sell.


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## bee (May 12, 2002)

Turkeys are individuals. I raised from chick and poult TOGETHER a mixed group; got along just fine until the turkey hens decided to KILL a rooster. I got him out in time but it was 5 full grown turkey hens relentlessly pursuing one small breed rooster. Only thing I can figure was him breeding the chicken hens looked like "attacks" to the turkey hens.

Oh my yes they will dig!! My hens will dig a dusting hole big enough to completely get in.. long legs and all.
Be prepared for turkey curiosity; they have much more personality than chickens....big soulful eyes to stare at you with when the "day of the deed" comes...
bee


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## ajaxlucy (Jul 18, 2004)

My turkeys and chickens free-range in the same area but seem to ignore each other, mostly. They have separate housing. The chickens are good at putting themselves in at night, but the turkeys always need to be "ushered" back to their quarters. Sometimes they follow the feed bucket; other times a long light pole in either hand and a slow pace behind them works very well. Like Ann, I only feed them in their house. 

I heartily recommend getting them in before dark, so they don't roost high up in a tree then fly off to visit the neighbors (and nearby church) when the sun comes up the next morning. You don't want to get in trouble when your turkey tries to get into the sanctuary! Ask me how I know....

I don't keep turkeys over the winter, so mine just have a hoop house made of cattle panels, chicken wire, and tarps, whereas my chickens have a proper wooden coop. The turkeys have a sturdy wooden pole 3-4 feet off the ground to roost on.

I have had a mean rooster or two, but never a mean turkey, although we usually dispatch them by December, so we've never had an older turkey either. Now I think back, though, my tom turkeys were mean to an old dog after she had a stroke. They seemed to know she had trouble turning around without falling, and they'd pester her. They didn't particularly like the other dogs, but that's the only animal they ever attacked.

Have fun with your turkeys! Turkeys are silly in a nerdy/adorable way; next to them, chickens look like humorless businessmen.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

I have midget whites and I love them. they are gentle and I can pick most of them up. The first few nights, I had to retrieve them out of the tree and carry them into their house, then I discovered if I left the light on inside, they went in on their own. I did that for a week and now I dont have too. They go in 9 times out of 10 without help.

Also I have learned, that yes, chickens and turkeys ignore each other, but with guineas, its a different story all together. I think they communicate because guineas have blue and red heads also. each other sees the colors as a dominance battle. The blue slate tom we had last year was the boss. the guineas slept under him like they were babies and preened his feathers for him.


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## TRAILRIDER (Apr 16, 2007)

Lots of good info there, thanks! I just recieved my White Midget poults here in KY. I ordered 12 since I heard that they don't ship well, and can be difficult to raise. Of course I just "heard" that, don't know how true it is.
Well they arrived a day early, about 22 hours after hatching! So they had a pretty good trip from Texas. One was DOA. One had an injured beak and looked poor. The first day is always hard on shipped birds so I wasn't surpirsed they looked peaked. But this morning, boy oh boy! All were up and running and playing, eating drinking and pooping. The one with the beak injury was hard to distinguish from the others! They look like survivors to me : ) I hope you have as good a shipment as I did. Who did you order from? My order came from Ideal in TX. 
My Dhs mother raised turkeys back in Ireland many years ago. He says she always fed the poults hard boiled egg yolk by hand, and they always did very well for her. I will try that myself along with the 28% sporting bird starter crumbles. Good Luck!


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## TRAILRIDER (Apr 16, 2007)




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## Macpaul (Apr 14, 2008)

I hatched 2 royal palms 2yr. ago. Went and got some broilers from a friend as the turkeys were not very bright. The just did what the chickens did. I ended up with a hen and a tom. They didn't want to go back in at night. Had to get the hen off the roof of the coop more times than I want to remember. Put them up before the sun goes down. The toms don't fly after they get so big. My don't anyway. The tom took a dislike to my 3yr. old granddaughter and would chase her every chance he got. He started getting mean with everyone . So after my hen layed her nest(that we couldn't find)we sent him to freezer camp. Everyone enjoyed that meal. She hatched 4 of her 11 eggs.I didn't handle her babies the way I did her so they are kind of skiddish.(She still comes if I call her name) That is a trade off but at least I don't have them looking in the back door and leaving droppings all over the porch. I do feed all my poultry wheat bread from my hand. I can get them to come and follow me anywhere. Makes it great if I am going to leave and want to close up the coop early. My turkeys and chicken live and free range together. No problems.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

My midget whites did not come from a hatchery. A few came from a lady named Cathy on this forum, who got them from a private breeder originally, and was breeding her own. The rest came from Sandhill Preservation.
This is the first year I am hatching my own. I have some that hatched under a chicken. 5 hatched but one died. they are 3 weeks old now and doing fine. I have 7 and 9 eggs under two more hens, and a dozen in the incubator.


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## Ohiogal (Mar 15, 2007)

Thanks for the info! My birds will arrive sometime next week.
I have 3-4 chicks (Appenzeller) to hatch out this Thursday, as I tried to time them to go with the birds, so that they have "chicken" cousins to help with the training issues.
I plan on housing them all together this summer and during the winter.


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## piglady (Sep 28, 2006)

We love our midgets. I have 6 hens and have been geting 3-5 eggs a day. I put them in the incubator every saturday and have been getting great hatches once I figured out the humidity. Ours roosted on the roof until we put a net over their pen to keep them in. The toms will fight once breeding age, they fight each other, not me. They are great birds but the best part is the taste. So good that we intend to fill the freezer this year.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

I have 2 toms and they fought when the breeding season began, but only for a few days. Now they live together peaceably and I have no problems with them.


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## Ohiogal (Mar 15, 2007)

they've arrived! all 15 of them! Boy are they noisy and I'm glad that I have them in the garage!


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## TRAILRIDER (Apr 16, 2007)

Good looking poults! Thanks for the info pig lady. My babies are two weeks old now. had one chick die for unknown reasons and all ten survivors are getting tall and strong. I do believe of all the ducks, geese, guineas, peacocks and chickens I've raised, these are the friendliest birds yet. from day one they have all eaten from my hand and run to see me when they hear my voice. Hopefully when they grow up I will have a small breeding flock (keep one or two toms yet, I do not know) and some birds for the freezer. I am looking forward to that first home raised turkey dinner! 
I have been supplementing them with hard boiled egg yolk and "birdie muffins" (corn muffins with extra egg and whole corn, sometimes finely crushed egg shell added).


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## KOHL HAWKE (May 8, 2010)

How are the poults doing? I am due to have some arrive in a week. any advice?


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