Do all turkeys fly?

[Hoover67]

I am looking to add turkeys to our "nano-farm" sometime soon. I have chickens, quail and muscovies already. I do not have a lot of land so they will be penned up for the most part except when I am working in my 60 x 120 foot garden which has a 20 foot privacy netting around it. It used to be a tennis court. Anyway, is there a better breed of turkey that would work for this setup. Could I extend the run for my chickens and put a separate house/shelter for them? My chicken's shelter is 2.5 feet off of the ground so they can have more outdoor floor space.

Thanks!

 

[ivan3]

How much of an area for the turks are you working with? All heritage varieties will fly early and fly often (once they hit a yr. old they tend to stay closer to ground).

This 7x8 shed will accomodate 6 with little nastiness in the dead of winter, run is about 17'x40'.

Tonight's arrangement:

Think the hens had something to do with the RP tom and Slate jake being relegated to floor:

Big Slate tom is in `sin bin' (chicken run) for the night as the stress of molting and hormonal echoes owing to changing angle of sun brought on the need to spar with the RP tom.

The more room one can devote to run, the better. Our 6ft. fencing is more about keeping preds at bay, if the turks weren't copacetic with the run they'd just fly over the fence.

Clipped winged, Midget Whites might do for smaller area.

 

[Hoover67]

I have a run that is about 6' x 34' ... if I connect it with the chickens' run that would add 90 more square feet. I do not have to connect the two runs. It would be nice for the chickens and turkeys, I would think, if they shared a run. There would be more space to explore. I do not know if it is better to keep the chickens and the turkey's separate. The run is covered by chicken wire and is 8' tall. I still need to build a shelter on the other side. How much indo space would they need. We have mild winters here.

Thanks! I do want to mention that we do want to process the turkeys!

Michele

 

[ivan3]

Since you are going to process, then the question is merely how quickly you want to reach that goal. If in a hurry, choose commercial BBB/BBW. If not in a rush, go with Bourbon Reds/Midget Whites/etc. They all fly, Commercials spend more time with beaks in the feed.