… so I’m all in at this point.

[SwampPrincessChick]

Was told she’d be aggressive to predators and would get up to 35 pounds.

A bird will always want to save itself and its own flock rather than a flock of a different species, so your turkey will do nothing to save your chickens if a predator comes.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

A bird will always want to save itself and its own flock rather than a flock of a different species, so your turkey will do nothing to save your chickens if a predator comes.

They should imprint on one another and get along fine if given enough space. Violence typically only happens when animals are confined together in too small of areas. People use guard geese all the time and I've heard about people putting turkey into quail coops to protect quail from predators

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

They should imprint on one another and get along fine if given enough space. Violence typically only happens when animals are confined together in too small of areas. People use guard geese all the time and I've heard about people putting turkey into quail coops to protect quail from predators

The pecking order exists in poultry—no matter how much space poultry has, they will still peck on each other because it is their instinct to build a social hierarchy. Having a guard goose or any guard waterfowl to "protect" chickens is also animal abuse because, if a waterfowl male successfully mates with a landfowl female, the female will end up bleeding internally and either getting severely injured or dying, the latter being more often the case. A lone male goose will mate with any females he has, including chickens.

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

The pecking order exists in poultry—no matter how much space poultry has, they will still peck on each other because it is their instinct to build a social hierarchy. Having a guard goose or any guard waterfowl to "protect" chickens is also animal abuse because, if a waterfowl male successfully mates with a landfowl female, the female will end up bleeding internally and either getting severely injured or dying, the latter being more often the case. A lone male goose will mate with any females he has, including chickens.

Well, my turkey is supposed to be a female

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

They should imprint on one another and get along fine if given enough space. Violence typically only happens when animals are confined together in too small of areas. People use guard geese all the time and I've heard about people putting turkey into quail coops to protect quail from predators

And I understand that chances are the turkey isn’t going to go all dark night on the coyotes if they attack a chicken. The turkeys sense of self preservation and shear size is what I’m hoping that if a predator comes by the guineas will sound the alarm altering the birds and hopefully me as well, the turkey being as large as it is hopefully making the coyotes at least reconsidering going all f*** around and find out, giving the smaller birds time so seek shelter and me to get my 12 gauge and hopefully the turkey can fend for itself long enough for human intervention to deter or end the threat… and hopefully not damaging my septic system in the process

 

[SwampPrincessChick]

Well, my turkey is supposed to be a female

Female is the gender that takes part in the pecking order. Males don't.

 

[No Coop No Problem]

And I understand that chances are the turkey isn’t going to go all dark night on the coyotes if they attack a chicken.

Coyote should really pose zero threat to a chicken if one's set-up is correct. Both dogs and foxes are completely unable to catch my chickens here

The pecking order exists in poultry—no matter how much space poultry has, they will still peck on each other because it is their instinct to build a social hierarchy.

I've had bantams and Indio Gigante hanging out peacefully with zero issues. Size doesn't mean much because birds are fully capable of getting along respectfully if given enough room

One person on BYC literally put a tom turkey in with quail and had no violence occur because they all grew up together

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

Female is the gender that takes part in the pecking order. Males don't.

I meant there would be no issues with the massive turkey trying to mate with the smaller hens and hurting or killing then in the process.

 

[Ruler of the Roost]

You are keeping a bantam chicken with a turkey? Do you realize that is practically animal abuse? Not only will an individual be lonely when they have no other individuals of their own species, but when they grow up, bantams are significantly smaller than turkeys and it is not good to keep turkeys with chickens because turkeys are very large and will beat up a chicken, even to the point of killing them. Correct me if I read your post wrong but it is a bit confusing as to what your thought process is here.

I apologize, but I’ve spoken with several people around me that own all sorts of poultry and all assured me this was fine and relatively common practice.

 

[Huntmaster]

I apologize, but I’ve spoken with several people around me that own all sorts of poultry and all assured me this was fine and relatively common practice.

Not a good idea to brood them all together as they all have different needs among other things. They imprint on each other not knowing differences creating problems later as already been stated. Size is only one difference to be concerned with. Turkeys and Guinea have different feed needs. Guineas do much better in their own flock of usually 5-10 birds larger the flock the better.