Quote: 6x6 would be tight for more than three turkeys, and may even be tight for them. I would make sure they had a perch in the run too. Mine would rather perch in their run than in the coop. As for the perch, Even for chickens, I use a 2x4 flat side up instead of short side up. Turkeys and Chickens prefer a wide flat perch to sit on so they can huddle down and cover their entire feet with their feathers. For my turkeys I use 4x4's. Even my midget white toms can get up to 15-16lbs. Palms toms can get 20+. When you are talking a tom and two hens, you are looking at 40-50lbs easy. I'd prefer overkill on the perch to it not being enough. Turkeys will roost as high as they can get. When I let mine free range, they like to sleep in the barn rafters! My perches are about 45" (in a 72" pen). You need to make sure you leave plenty of head room so they don't crash into the ceiling trying to get on the perch.
Another note - if you decide to let chickens and turkeys live together, make sure the chickens have plenty of space to get away. Turkey hens can be rough on them if they can corner them. They chase my roosters a lot, and even my hens on occasion. So when they get penned up for the winter where they won't get to free range, I separate mine from the chickens just to be safe.
What a wonderfully warm couple of days! My flock actually walked around OUTSIDE the coop/run this weekend. There's still a lot of snow but also a lot of MUD. This is new to me because last year's flock stayed inside the run area until late March.
Questions:
Why were my chickens eating the snow? For weeks they've been afraid of it. Never set a foot into it. All of a sudden on Sat, they started eating it like cracked corn.
Is there any way to prevent chickens from drinking muddy puddles? Should I even worry about it?
My chickens will walk by a pristine, just cleaned waterer to drink from a puddle they pooped in earlier. The only solution I see is to make sure you don't have any puddles, and we all know that isn't possible.
I'm placing an order for Spring trees (my back hurts just thinking about it!) and they have a minimum order of 100 trees of each variety. I am looking at Norway Spruce (they could potentially sub White Pine if they are low on Spruce) and Sugar Maple (maple syrup trees). Would anyone be interested in purchasing my extras? I would hate to throw them away and couldn't possibly plant 200! Let me know if anyone is interested. I'm thinking $1 a tree.
Count me in! We planted quite a few sugar maples last year and I think we lost several that will need replacing, and we are always looking for conifers to plant for wind breaks.
Fortunately, we don't use many eggs, so we're still overflowing with them.
