We've kept our turkeys in our community pen for years. It houses chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, and pigeons. However, we've always introduced the turkeys when they're still quite small. Once they've reached adult size the chickens treat the toms like they were roosters, following them around...
Hello and welcome, I'm pretty new here too. What part of central Florida are you from? I grew up in Orlando myself and wife is from Miami. We now live in Northeast Alabama.
I agree with nuthatched on this. Even in bitter cold the mother hen will keep the babies warm. If you're still nervous about the cold, could you put the mother and babies in a separate area of the coop in their own cage and add a heat lamp nearby?
Of course this may seem like an obvious reply, but in our situation we've found that the more space there is the less bullying happens. I would guess that's because there's room enough for everyone to have their own space. You said in your case space is an issue so like others have said...
I'll say that in our experience if you're handling the chicks from a young age, hand feeding, letting them become lap chickens etc, roosters can become quite friendly. We had a buff orpington that we raised from an egg that had a great personality. Anytime we walked into the coop or flight cage...
It's good to see everyone's thoughts on this, I really appreciate the feedback. The reason for the flight cage originally was to provide our pigeons with a large enough area to get some flight time. We used to allow them out once a day, now we only allow this a few times a year because of all...
We built a large 30ft x 30ft x 10ft high flight cage (what we call it), it's more like an aviary than a chicken run. We house our pet chickens in this same enclosure with our pigeons, turkeys, ducks, and geese. We decided on baseball field netting similar to what they use in the big aviaries at...
(1) Are you new to chickens / when did you first get chickens?
Loved chickens and really all animals from a young age. Begged my parents for years and was finally allowed to acquire one single hen after proving I could take care of it through caring for a few pigeons and doves. It wasn't long...