Help with raising baby chicks.

[tumalojim]

Is it safe to raise young baby chicks with adult Bourbon Red turkeys within the same enclosure? Or will the turkeys peck the new chicks as a rooster would?
I am new to this forum so please bear with me if I am posting incorrectly.
Thank you,
Oregon Jim

 

[azygous]

Your instincts are telling you it's not a good idea to combine baby chicks with adult turkeys. Ot even adult chickens.

However, you can certainly brood in the same enclosure as long as the chicks are protected by a pen fence.

At age three weeks, I open small portals from the chicks' pen into the main run. That way, the chicks can learn how to deal with the big ones while still having a safe haven.

Others may want to weigh in on the advisability of combing turkeys with chickens, though.

 

[lovechicks1293]

Ok so i really wanta golden comet flock but i need to know all the facts about them. Like what color are they when they are chicks? Stuff like that.i live in michigan so wondering if any of u could give me details on were to buy them. Thanks!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Based on my experience a chicken rooster is extremely unlikely to peck the chicken chicks. It’s a whole lot more likely he would protect the chicks. The other adult hens are the ones you would need to worry about, and even then, they are not always aggressive toward chicks. They can be though. Leaving baby chicks alone with adult hens is not a good idea unless he chicks have a broody to protect them. The idea that a rooster will go after the chicks is pretty common on this forum but it is totally against my experience.

I’m assuming you mean raising chicken chicks, not turkey chicks, often called poults? I’ve never tried to raise baby chicken chicks with adult turkeys but I’d assume the same general rules would apply. House them next to each other for a while so they get used to each other, then give them lots of room when you combine them. I’ve raised turkey poults with adult chickens but never the other way around.

If I have a disease that you are not vaccinated against or somehow immune to, I can give you that disease. If I don’t have that disease I cannot spread it.

Blackhead is a disease that chickens can have and be carriers of without it affecting them much if at all. A parasite in the chicken actually hosts blackhead. However blackhead is usually fatal to turkeys. If your chickens have blackhead it is usually really bad for the turkeys. But if you don’t have blackhead in your flock, it’s not a big deal. Lots of people successfully keep chickens and turkeys together. I’ve never kept a turkey past Thanksgiving so I personally don’t have experience of keeping adult turkeys and adult chickens together.