I haven't even gotten my flock yet and y'all already have me wanting turkey for Thanksgiving and goose for Christmas. (what does goose taste like any way?) I'm getting a lot of great info digging through past threads. I haven't found this yet but can a goose and a turkey be raised together? Or would I have to get pairs of both? I know they have to be house separately from the chickens, but can they be housed together? Arrrrgh! I want to go slow but the idea of farm fresh meat is so alluring I want it all NOW !!!! lol Y'all need to stop making sound so good! lol Seriously, thank you all for sharing. It's very generous of you.
Haha i know how you feel. I started off with only chickens, now i am getting peafowl this week and turkeys in the spring. This site gives you too many ideas. From what i understand you can raise turkeys and chickens in the same coop. You just need to watch out with baby chicks and turkeys. The turkeys will squash them. My best friend has geese, turkeys, and chickens all in the same run and coop.
Me, too! Started with chickens, added ducks, and planning on turkeys and even a couple of pigs this spring! At this rate, look out!!!
Once you start down the road to self-sufficiency and know how GOOD everything is - it's really hard to put on the brakes! Thankfully, I'm within city limits - and the ordinance states 'no farm animals' except chickens. So....unless I wish to go way out there and stick my neck out too far - I'm limited to fowl only. Otherwise I'd have milking goats, a pig or two and some miniature hereford's. I content myself with figuring out new and interesting ways to utilize what we already have (bees, maple trees, expanding edible landscaping annually and growing the best darn garden I can!).
Goose is awesome, pretty similar to duck. There is a lot of fat in a goose though and you need to remove it from the roasting dish as it accumultes as you cook it or you can end up with a fire in your oven (speaking from experience here!) We like using a fruit stuffing with granny smith apples, raisins, dried cranberries and orange zest. Makes the yummiest pie like filling to complement the rich goose! Getting hungry just thinking about it! I also understand that they are a real job to pluck...although I am not speaking from experience there. Perhaps you need some new goose down pillows!
I started with chickens then got ducks then some geese. I love duck (I have muscovy) I'm not such a fan of goose. I had a Chinese and 4 Africans, 1 female and the rest male. I processed 2 before Thanksgiving. Not much meat there for a 4.5 month old. I was going to pluck but NO WAY. I skinned them. The breast meat has a silver skin on it that needs to be removed or its VERY chewy.. I didn't know that for Thanksgiving. The taste is okay but I prefer my duck. So, I processed the rest of the geese a few days before Christmas. The individual breasts were maybe 2/3 lb (I'm guessing) compare that with a similar age muscovy drake with ind'l breasts weighing 1.5 lbs. I'm sticking to ducks. I do plan on getting some turkeys. I have read that you shouldn't raise them with chickens because of blackhead (I think) but I think you can medicate for it. I know many on BYC do raise them together.
I have spoken with others who raise turkeys with their chickens and the main thing that they say is that you have to have them apart so that the turkeys don't get infected from the chicken poop. Towards the end last year when I had my turkeys and chickens we had a super hard rain and my turkey pen was flooded I moved them in the 1/4 acre area where my chickens free range. The turkeys were afraid of the chickens and so didn't really hang out together I mainly had to watch out at feeding time because the chickens would push my big 40lb turkeys out of the way and eat all their food as well as their own. The little bullies lol. They were together for about a month and no one got sick but then they had a huge area and only got somewhat close when they had to sleep.
