Keeping Chickens with ducks/turkey...

[Tealbait]

I tried doing this in the spring...I have 2 mallard ducks. I put a fairly large turkey poult, a baby goose, and several chicken pullets in with the ducks. Everybody got along...but the next few days, I found the turkey and a chicken had drowned in the small tub that the ducks swim in. (Even though it has a cement block in the middle to climb on, and a step to get in/out. ) Now I have the now-grown goose, and chickens free-ranging, and have another turkey poult in a different pen. Is is just too dangerous to put fowl in with the ducks? it seems they do not know how to get out of the water if they get in it, even if it is shallow, with steps. Any info would help..I do not want another drowning.

 

[HS Pye]

Yes isn't a very good idea to mix other fowl with each other. Turkeys are very brainless and it is best to have a hanging waterer or a shallow bowl for turkeys. I've heard of turkeys who have drowned with two inches of water in a bowl.

HS Pye

 

[donrae]

I don't know what it is, or how the abundant wild turkeys around here manage, but mine have always been determined to drown themselves. Now granted, they've been broadbreasted and once they get waterlogged they weigh a flippin TON, so I can't see how they could have drug themselves out of the water. I have lost pullets twice in deeper, steep sided livestock troughs. I keep a kiddie pool in the run for my ducks and have never lost a chicken in there. Haven't tried turkeys since I've had it, though, don't know how they'd do.