Bourbon Red + Brahma Chicken = Love?

[KatieInez]

Hello!

I've got two Bourbon Reds, a male and female, ~ 6 months old. They were raised with and currently housed with my flock of chickens, everyone spends their days roaming free.

Tom Turkey (named Cecil) has been gobbling and strutting for ages now but today I looked out and saw him on top of and thrusting my big brahma chicken. She's covered in mud and there are a few feathers flying around now but otherwise she doesn't seem upset. Anyone else experienced this behavior and any reason for concern?

 

[R2elk]

Hello!

I've got two Bourbon Reds, a male and female, ~ 6 months old. They were raised with and currently housed with my flock of chickens, everyone spends their days roaming free.

Tom Turkey (named Cecil) has been gobbling and strutting for ages now but today I looked out and saw him on top of and thrusting my big brahma chicken. She's covered in mud and there are a few feathers flying around now but otherwise she doesn't seem upset. Anyone else experienced this behavior and any reason for concern?

Because you imprinted your turkeys with chickens, your turkey does not know the difference between chickens and turkeys. It is time to separate your turkeys from your chickens before you start finding dead chickens from his breeding attempts. You really need more turkey hens for your tom than just one.

 

[3-Bearss]

Our Wild Eastern Turkey tom did just that to our Rhode Island Red hen. After two days we caught him ... too late, the hen died the next day from shock, 20 pound tom on 5 pound hen = dead hen
oh and we just had the tom for Christmas dinner

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Definitely separate them. I learned my lesson the hard way about raising chickens and turkeys together.

 

[KatieInez]

What a bummer. I did what I thought was due diligence regarding raising them together and the only mention of possible issues was in regards to Blackhead disease. So now here's a question: let's say I separate these two from the chickens and give them their own space. Will the the Tom mate the single hen to death? I know 1:1 ratio isn't ideal, but can it work?

 

[Dani4Hedgies]

You need to get more Turkey hens OR you need to leave your hen in with your chickens and keep your Tom separated entirely.

 

[R2elk]

What a bummer. I did what I thought was due diligence regarding raising them together and the only mention of possible issues was in regards to Blackhead disease. So now here's a question: let's say I separate these two from the chickens and give them their own space. Will the the Tom mate the single hen to death? I know 1:1 ratio isn't ideal, but can it work?

When your turkey hen goes broody, you will need to separate the tom from her. When the hen is broody the tom will take her laying on the nest as permission to breed. That can end up with three different outcomes. The breeding attempts will end up at the least with broken eggs or at the worst the hen will be injured or killed.

One of the ways to separate the hen from the tom during the time she is setting on the nest is to build a small enclosure around her nest that has an opening that she can get through but make it small enough that the tom cannot get through.

You can get her a turkey saddle which can alleviate some of the damage to her back during matings.

 

[KatieInez]

Thanks for the responses. Definitely disappointed. Cecil has done a good job protecting and herding my chicken ladies until recently. We weren't planning on eating the turkeys, rather having them as lovely little additions running around eating acorns and gobbling. Going to try tweaking some housing and access and see if we can make it work. Always learning.

 

[KatieInez]

Update for anyone interested: I spent a lot of time watching chicken TV (our term for sitting on the tailgate watching our flock).... turns out Mr.Cecil wasn't getting sexy with our chickens. It looks like when one of the chickens is blocking access to his favorite feeder, he solidly steps on her which causes a ruckus. Problem solved: moved that feeder up to where only he can reach. Still looking at getting them their own space though and taking all your advice into consideration.