Free ranging different kinds of poultry together

[Bird maniac]

Hello! This may be the wrong section (I’m new) anyway I have a large barn. Half is going to be show chicken breeding and half will be for poultry. So my question is: could I keep turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and Guinea Fowl together. Note: I will free range them during the day with two great pyrs and Anatolian Sephard mix. (They are trained to guard my existing flock of chickens)

 

[chickencheeper]

They may be fine as long as they meet each other at a young age. All females would discourage cross breeding between ducks and chickens and geese though I don’t know about turkeys and guinea fowl. Though I have read somewhere that Turkeys should NOT be kept with chickens

 

[chickencheeper]

Ps

 

[sannabelle]

I have all of those species together (minus geese) with no problems everyone will have a different experience. If you have both male and female fowl of each species, will be important to maintain proper male to female ratios. For example- if you have all tom turkeys, they will mate (and kill) your chicken hens. Must have an adequate number of turkey hens for your toms, etc. etc.

Good luck!! And welcome!

 

[Bird maniac]

Thanks for the info , how big do you think the coop should be if I’m going to keep
18 geese
18 ducks
10 guineas
10 turkeys
And my 28 chickens together?

 

[Krazyquilts]

i currently have about 25 stupid guineas, 5 turkeys, 14 darling duck, and about 8 chickens sharing a pasture and coop. Everyone seems to get along fine, but I should emphasize that the guineas have not yet gone through a mating season and I've heard that they may start picking on the chickens and ducks when that happens.

It's funny watching the turkeys take a weekly or so "foot bath" in the duck pools. Ducks (and I assume geese) are a lot messier than "land poultry" so I make sure to put down a lot of straw around the duck pools to keep the mud down and also to move the pools around every couple days.

The ducks and chickens sleep inside the coop, and if the weather is bad, then the guineas and turkeys will sleep inside the coop but usually they prefer to sleep on top of the coop. I think the biggest issue is making sure that there is extra space beyond the recommended minimums to account for such differing personalities.

 

[Bird maniac]

Hi Krazy, what size coop and run do you keep your poultry in?

 

[Krazyquilts]

Hi Krazy, what size coop and run do you keep your poultry in?

It's Krazyquilts - don't you know it's rude to call people crazy?

The coop is a camper that's about 30 feet long by 8 feet wide, but 1/4 of it has been sectioned off for a grow-out pen. The pasture is two 164 foot lengths of Poultry netting for a total perimeter of 328 feet plus a 6 feet gate. We can move the fence around somewhat, but next year we are going to move the camper-coop to a different spot that will offer more flexibility location-wise and the guineas and turkeys will be in a separate area, hopefully to free range.

We bought guineas keets this summer with the assumption that they would free range and eat ticks but they are too stupid to figure out how to leave the pasture. If any of them fly over the fence, they panic and spend the rest of the day running into the electric fence until I open the gate and chase them through or if they get startled into flying back into the pasture. If it weren't for the fact that guineas are darn tasty, I wouldn't even consider continuing to raise them.

 

[BantyChooks]

Hello! This may be the wrong section (I’m new) anyway I have a large barn. Half is going to be show chicken breeding and half will be for poultry. So my question is: could I keep turkeys, chickens, ducks, geese, and Guinea Fowl together. Note: I will free range them during the day with two great pyrs and Anatolian Sephard mix. (They are trained to guard my existing flock of chickens)

I have kept chickens, ducks, and guineas together, and it went okay except for the guineas being merciless beater-uppers of any new birds. I have seen people keep all of those birds except maybe guineas together, but they were free ranged. I certainly think you could make it work.

 

[Bird maniac]

Okay, I think I might keep them together. What size coop/barn would you recommend for how many birds I’m going to have.