Is it a good idea to keep turkeys around fruit trees or growing pumpkin?

[Red Mangrove]

Other sources stated domestic turkeys are a good addition to an apple orchard. Does anyone here have domestic turkeys that are free range and the turkeys actually have preference of sleeping in the trees?

Sleeping in trees is healthy for *checks notes* animals that fly and have wings

 

[wilderbirds]

Sleeping in trees is healthy for *checks notes* animals that fly and have wings

Was this supposed to make sense?

 

[Red Mangrove]

Was this supposed to make sense?

Galliformes naturally roost in trees because that's the safest place for them

 

[R2elk]

Just because your farm didnt do things one way dosnt mean its not a possibility. There are legit farms keeping turkeys and chickens in the orchard. Its maybe not common practice but common practice in farming right now isnt great by any standards. Its not ai; there are videos news stories and personal farm sites documenting this.

In this day and age there are a lot of first time "homesteaders" making things up as they go for their blogs. It doesn't turn what they are doing into a good idea but it gets them lots of click throughs.

 

[R2elk]

Galliformes naturally roost in trees because that's the safest place for them

Not around here. It would make them owl and coon bait here.

 

[wilderbirds]

Galliformes naturally roost in trees because that's the safest place for them

A domestic turkey isnt built like a wild turkey. They are fatter and less mobile. Seems you dont keep freerange domestic turkeys because you seem to keep skipping over the question of whether your domestic turkeys actually show preference of roosting in trees.

 

[wilderbirds]

In this day and age there are a lot of first time "homesteaders" making things up as they go for their blogs. It doesn't turn what they are doing into a good idea but it gets them lots of click throughs.

Picture below isnt a new homesteader but a longstanding cider orchard in europe..there are other more farms like this. Keeping poultry in the orchard was traditional european farming practice. Anyway after this research its decided turkeys and orchards are combo ill try. Its a beautiful sight and appears to be symbiotic. The priority is the sanctuary so i dont care if some healthy fruits get taken. Seems overall they help the trees with pest control and fertilizer and the trees give shade and food.

 

[HeritageFan]

-putting on my hard hat-

If I were trying to set up a situation similar to what it seems you’re trying to create....
Here are some things to consider.

Having had free range, heritage breed turkeys when they were young (we started w 14 all the same age, only 4 were hens, 2 different varieties)....
I LOVED the mini pterodactyls roaming around!
When they are small (until 3-4 months or so) they are very light and excellent fliers.
Even with one wing clipped, they needed to be in a covered pen during the day, and I always put them in a secure coop at night.
Then spring came. The Toms all started spontaneously fighting when the hens came of “age”.
In a day. All at once. It was a sh*t show but highly entertaining for my friend who was visiting as I was breaking up the fights and separating everyone
I’m glad I had pens and coops sufficient to do so!

@R2elk @Molpet amd a few others have surely gotten many laughs and many more on my behalf but they have solid advice. Please do consider their suggestions as well.

I (obviously) don’t know the layout of your property. I also don’t know your goals.
Pets?
Raising to butcher?
Raising to propagate a variety?
Trying to set up a “petting zoo” along w the other farm activities?

What I can share from my experience-
- you don’t want the turkeys in your garden. They will eat pests, along w almost everything else. And, yes, they will poop everywhere. But they will have eaten all the greens and veggies, sooo.... the poo is a secondary concern.
- you are going to need to think about coop and run set ups. The youngsters will need a safe area to grow until they are too big to fly/ jump over your perimeter fencing. They all- including adults, should be closed into a secure coop at night so they are safe from predation.
- if you want to incubate or hatch eggs. You are going to need the ability to separate breeding groups. Both physically and visually.
- You should plan to keep one Tom per breeding group, ideally w 3-4 hens. And you need to make sure that there is a safe “laying” area in the coop for your hens, where the Tom can’t get to them. The best coop set up is probably a question for another thread, though.

It is not likely that you will be able to have a mixed flock free ranging happily. Even in that much space.
Perhaps one breeding group. Or maybe a bachelor flock.
But.
IF you decide to do a free range group (or groups)....
- Your free range pen needs to be out of sight of your breeding pens, should you want any.
- you should still have a secure coop for night time and not allow them to get into the trees. Even if you have to go herd them in, in the evening. You work too hard to let an owl, raccoon, weasel, hawk, coyote, bobcat, dog, etc have an easy meal. And if the the predators DO find an easy meal- they will be back w friends.
- you should have runs and coops for every group that you have, so you can close them in if you want or need to.
Even if it is just because you are headed out of town- your farm sitter isn’t likely to have a lot of luck chasing a bunch of turkeys to their coop over 5 acres or so.

Now here is the other point that no one else has brought up.

Even heritage turkey Toms can be very large birds.
They are usually very docile, esp when raised right.
But. You mentioned having customers come onto your property.
My Bourbon Red Toms are about 30ish#
My Holland White Toms are about 38#+

....they are all very good to me, and everyone I’ve let around them.
But. If someone had a small child on my property, and they were inside a fence....say picking apples.
And one of those Toms decided that he wanted to mount, or attack, someone’s kiddo- he could do some serious damage, esp if the person who understands their behavior (you, in this scenario) wasn’t right there to recognize the behavior and stop it before it happened.

The liability is highly worthy of consideration as well.
Just my $0.02

 

[HeritageFan]

Picture below isnt a new homesteader but a longstanding cider orchard...there are other more farms like this. Anyway after this research its decided turkeys and orchards are combo ill try. Its a beautiful sight and appears to be symbiotic. The priority is the sanctuary so i dont care if some healthy fruits get taken. Seems overall they help the trees with pest control and fertilizer and the trees give shade and food.

View attachment 3620219

And, to me- it appears that is an all hen flock.
I don’t think that having the turkeys in an orchard is a bad idea. You just have to be aware of the up and down sides alike.
....and those bronze ladies don’t roost in those trees the trees are too small and too laden w fruit

 

[Molpet]

My turkeys prefer roosting 30ft in mulberry and 50ft in black walnut trees. Everything was fine for a couple years, until the GH owls showed up.
I lose a few hens to owls and nest raiders every year. Lost 5 poults to something one night. Might have been weasels, mink, raccoons or opossum. I think a hawk got 3 poults. Coyotes got a Tom and 3 hens on nests.
The owls have even killed a 4 year old tom last Dec. And this spring several hens and a poult that I didn't get to before they were put of reach of my 10ft pole.