Turkeys and chickens getting along????

[Boichik86]

One of my girlfriends recently had her midget white tom (who is a beautiful bird, by the way) mount her croc while she was out in the yard doing her chicken chores! It was like... ewww.

Which brings me to another question... do the toms ever take on the "hen" role and go broody? We have one midget white "tom" who is 8 months old (our 2 hens are about 9-1/2 months old). Our "tom" has a beard, as do most toms. But he does not display except for on rare occasions and does not ever "drum" or act aggressively toward anyone else in our flock (we have 40 hens, 8 roosters, 2 turkey hens, and 1 turkey tom--the turkeys are all midget whites). The "tom" seems to want to sit on eggs. What the heck? Then he "displayed" to my husband when he tried to pull said tom off the nest. What's up with THAT? We have a "tom" midget white and a hen we call a "milkie" (part marans, part silkie). They sit together on the nest, and when we try to break the "milkie" of her broodiness and pull her off, the "tom" midget white takes her eggs! Now, I wouldn't think he was a "tom" if he didn't have this ginormous beard.

Do tom turkeys tend to sit on eggs? Inquiring minds want to know!

YES toms, roos, drakes, and other polygamous male birds will sometimes go broody

 

[HHandbasket]

Ok, so now I have another question. The only reason I believe this turkey is a tom is because it has a "beard". Do the females also get the beard? If so, I may have 3 hens.

 

[R2elk]

Ok, so now I have another question. The only reason I believe this turkey is a tom is because it has a "beard". Do the females also get the beard? If so, I may have 3 hens.

Yes, definitely, hens can have beards although a hen's beard does not typically get as long as a tom's beard. The first Blue Slate hen that I got has a beard. Here is a thread specifically about hens having beards.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/38338/do-hens-have-beards

 

[HHandbasket]

You are so awesome! Thank you very much.

This is why I knew this was the right place to come for answers.

I believe I have 3 hens, then, as there have been 2 days when we mysteriously got 3 turkey eggs in a day, figuring we must have missed one the day before (but wondering how that had happened, as we check several times a day, including when we close the coops at night). Her beard is maybe an inch or so long, more like a "tuft". But yes, she's the one that's broody, so I guess it's not a tom after all.

I kinda wondered because she doesn't have a big snood or anything, and the toms we raised last year displayed & "drummed" constantly by this age and had big, poofy beards and gorgeous blue faces when they'd display, and they gobbled all day. All 3 of these midget whites just hoot and coo a lot. With the exception of the one broody, they are really sweet, too.

 

[chickenfanatic7]

turkeys and chickens get along great! Not turkeys and ducks, though. One female turkey almost killed one of our ducks.

 

[daniel rainey]

this is wierd iv been keeping turkeys and hens together for years now and have never had a singal problem exept for a rooster bullying the turkeys! i have also kept them with duck which cauzed o problem however geese did as the bullying (from geese to turkeys) got quit bad! but its not advisable to keep turks and chucks for fear of black headd, but as i said iv been doing it for years with out a problem, the only other thing i can think of is the turkeys will walk straight of young hens or bantams if there is a race to food. But not intentionally, just out of clumsynes!

 

[Bush Chickens]

is it safe to have 2 baby turks in the brooder with some chicks???

 

[txrobnla]

I keep my pair of blue slate turkey's in with the chickens and the hens hid under my Tom when the Roos get "in the mood". It's pretty funny watching a hen hide under a struting Tom while he bulldozes the Roos out of the way. They all sleep together on the same roost with chickens snuggled up to the turkeys.

I think our Tom Jasper thinks they are "his" chickens.