3 Weeks Old.. Any Roo's ??

[Lelilamom]

If all your chicks' combs remain that pale yellowish hue, you're in luck. The second you see one of those combs start looking more pink than pale yellow, you're in trouble. Of course, by sixteen weeks or thereabouts, the combs will turn red because they will be near point of lay.

Exposing the chicks to the adult flock is an excellent idea. After a week of that, you could establish a 'panic room" by opening up 5x7" portals in the fence in several places so the chicks can go out, mingle with the flock and return to safety when they feel the need. By age five weeks, they will have fully integrated into your flock and they can then safely move into the coop.

Just a reminder, you may need more time for introduction before mixing with a panic room depending on the disposition of your established flock.

 

[tha5150]

Thanks for the info. Below is our current setup for them in the garage. As soon as they feather, we will put this in the coop. I am debating cutting he legs down a bit to lower it for a more personal interaction with the older flock. Not sure yet but defiantly want this to all go smoothly. We noticed a few getting pretty close to the wire when we let them play freely today. I'm sure they will double in size within a few weeks and not so defenseless. We will do it smartly but will be nerve racking too I'm sure.

 

[Lelilamom]

Thanks for the info. Below is our current setup for them in the garage. As soon as they feather, we will put this in the coop. I am debating cutting he legs down a bit to lower it for a more personal interaction with the older flock. Not sure yet but defiantly want this to all go smoothly. We noticed a few getting pretty close to the wire when we let them play freely today. I'm sure they will double in size within a few weeks and not so defenseless. We will do it smartly but will be nerve racking too I'm sure.

For a different perspective, we don't use a panic room. We have a "meet and greet" coop that is adjacent to our main coop and run. Our pullets go in there for 10 weeks so they are face to face with our big girls, but can't actually mix. Then we let them free range for a few weeks before we start allowing them to use the big girl coop. This has worked well for us for the past three years now. You have to find what works well for you and your birds.

 

[tha5150]

Mind getting me a few pics? That's a great idea. I just wish we had more room on the side to make this happen. We built our coop about 18 inches from the fence... Just enough room to walk through and clean (and for me to store my crap) lol. I wish that I could have done what I think you did. Same coop and run idea but just on a much smaller and cheaper scale.

Also I was pretty excited to think of a quarantine area that could be made once the baby chicks are out of the current one but it may be too small for a full grown chicken.

Post up some pics to get my brain working. Thanks!!!

 

[Lelilamom]

Here's a bit about our setup. The main coop is an insulated, unheated stick built house. 6x6x8. The attached run is 6x6x24. The side run is 6x6x12 with a 4x3x4 coop (which has been rebuilt from this picture). The pictures are older and we now have the entire setup roofed with metal roofing at a 7-12 pitch. We use the side coop/run for pullets until June. Then we clean it out and move in our Turkey pullets in July. I do NOT recommend sharing a coop between chickens and turkeys because of the risk of blackhead. We take a risk every year. Do not follow in our example. Get a separate space for your turkeys.

All chicken wire fencing is doubled and goes 18 inches into the ground. We have added a 100 X 150 ft enclosed yard for free ranging and a 40 x 40 ft electric mesh fence for our meat chickens, which are kept separate.





We also have broilers, as I mentioned before in a movable tractor (you can see them in the above pic on the other side of the run) and I have a quarantine brooder in the house for sick birds. We have over two acres of property so we have room to grow.

 

[tha5150]

Very cool setup! Thanks for sharing

as for raising Turkeys with the Chickens... Do you do anything different? Can they all live together? Do they perch at night? Eat same food? Can drink same water?

Basically, can I just toss a Turkey in the flock and have no issues and just count on a nice meal in 8 months or so? How long do they need to be, prior to that time??

 

[Lelilamom]

Very cool setup! Thanks for sharing

as for raising Turkeys with the Chickens... Do you do anything different? Can they all live together? Do they perch at night? Eat same food? Can drink same water?

Basically, can I just toss a Turkey in the flock and have no issues and just count on a nice meal in 8 months or so? How long do they need to be, prior to that time??

Turkeys eat different feed, and drink a ton of water. We noticed they like running or open water. We leave a hose that leaks over a low barrel and they drink from it constantly. It never overflows unless it rains. We make sure there is drainage from the barrel so it doesn't puddle and get muddy in that area.

Turkeys perch at night and depending on the breed, if they get too heavy can't jump more than 12 - 16 inches, so the roosting bar needs to be low.

Chickens and Turkeys MUST be kept separate. Chickens carry Blackhead that is deadly to Turkeys. Letting them live together in the same space is very risky. There are a folks on here that do and will tell you that cleanliness is the key. I will tell you, our birds live together and I live in fear every day of Blackhead. I wish I had 25 acres with one coop on one side and the other coop on the other side. Our chickens eat the Turkey feed and the Turkeys eat the chicken feed. They drink each other's water. The chickens roost with the turkeys at night and occasionally a turkey will sneak into the chicken coop and sleep in there. We clean out the coops and runs routinely, put cayenne in all the feed and apple cider vinegar in the water and use Food Grade DE in the coops, runs, nests, and in the scratch areas. We make sure there is good drainage especially in the spring and fall when it's wet. We check for pastybutt, even as adults! We supplement with plenty of veggies and the birds are out in the grass every day. In the three years we've raised turkeys with our chickens, we've been lucky. I don't expect to always be this lucky.

Turkey Toms will fight and can kill your rooster. They outweigh him by 30+ lbs by the time they hit 4 or 5 mos depending on the breed. We raise BB Whites. We get them Mid-June, move them to the coop July 4th weekend and butcher the Sunday before Thanksgiving. Our smallest hen was 30 lbs and our largest Tom was 60 lbs. That's on the table. Our turkeys have always been friendly, cozying up to me, especially when I was pregnant with our youngest; they followed me around the yard, rubbing up against me and would lay in the garden next to me while I picked carrots and turnips. We butcher our females first because they freak out to see the males get butchered and we don't want them panicking. We only raise four turkeys each year and if we have two females, we butcher both at the same time. We make every effort to be as humane as possible. We love our animals and are grateful to have them provide so much food for us.







Here is some information about Blackhead. You can contact your local Dept. of Agriculture for information as well.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/134230/hope-this-saves-a-turkey-from-blackhead
https://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/viewhtml.php?id=343

 

[tha5150]

Thanks for the info. Great pics

 

[tha5150]

Updating... Making sure we still have no roosters in the bunch. These are about 3 months old at this point..Wife seems to think that Dolly, the RIR is a roo and possibly one of the Buffs...

Let us know and thanks! Also, we have 7 more in the incubator due this Saturday which is going to be our first. Very excited!

 

[Jensownzoo]

Your buff looks like a pullet to me. So does your RIR, but I don't have any direct experience with that breed, so am willing to be overruled.