Our turkeys killed one of their own

[outdoormomof7]

Our 3 month old turkeys are well-fed and free-ranged at our farm. We had 9 of them and I suspect 1 female in the mix. Yesterday they were really competing it seemed as many of them were putting a lot of energy into sparring. But suddenly they all ganged up on one and pecked at it. It appeared that another was in its windpipe and it died. I got there too late and they wanted to keep pecking at its head. I had to chase them away. What causes this type of behavior? It makes me concerned that they will do it again.

 

[chooks4life]

Extreme violence and cannibalism is pretty common in commercial breeds or any animals intensively farmed for recent generations, it takes a good half dozen or so generations to breed out the negative traits once you buy the initial stock from such a place, but my turkeys are backyard-bred mongrels and I've also had violence issues among them. But, the issues remain in backyard keepers as with most hatcheries, as they're intensively caged and violent animals are bred on. Just giving them a free range environment doesn't magically make them nice and happy birds, they are still running a 'cage mentality' in their heads and will for generations to come. May help to think of them as violent prison inmates, if that's not too bizarre... They often can't cope in normal society and lack basic social skills and resort to extreme violence over the mildest causes, or for no reason at all. This is common with all intensively caged animals.

Ganging up and obsessive aggression are very, very strong traits in almost all turkeys I've seen, mine or others'. Once they start they get stuck into a killer mindset and can't stop.

The tiny babies at a few weeks old would get into epic battles and savage one another and be unable to stop. I'd separate them and they'd be right back at it, for hours and hours on end, instead of free ranging with their mother.

One turkey hen I had showed escalating violence towards another hen until she and her daughter smashed than hen to the point that she died a slow and painful death.

To give you an idea of the sheer amount of force they used, there was a stainless steel pot in there with them for water, and they dented that flat in one side, into a D shape instead of an O, if you're viewing the pot from above. That's enormous force, it was a thick quality stainless-steel pot, large enough to hold two roast chooks, about 7 inches deep.

Shouldn't have happened, I had them separated; but a nice old lady who thought she knew better (even after I explicitly explained to her the reasons for their separation, and the likely outcome or putting them together) put them together when I wasn't around, and that was that. It was kind of a good thing because she later put a tiny damaged bantam hen who's a family pet in with the turkey after she was smashed and separated again, and if the turkey hadn't been dying the bantam hen would have been killed by her. I'd also explicitly told her why that bantam hen had her own living quarters (her skeleton was broken and had weakly healed but remained a liability). Still rankles a little even though she had all the best intentions, there was nothing malicious in what she did. I don't blame her but I've had a gutful of people doing whatever they want behind my back with my animals, despite me telling them certain issues will occur if certain situations are brought about.

Anyway... Most turkeys I've had are extremely violent, it's due to people keeping and breeding violent turkeys, as it is with chickens who exhibit extreme violence. The cure is to either work to breed it out or cull them and buy a calmer lot and continue to cull excessively aggressive individuals with every generation until they stop being produced. I did that with my chooks, worked like a charm, no bullying, no killing, no cannibalism --- all of those are strongly heritable and abnormal traits --- but I've yet to do the same with my turkeys due to moving house and only retaining one. I'm going to start from scratch if this one looks like she'll be alright, but I doubt it, I may end up buying more in. Wild pigs broke into a cage and ate my best male and female while I was agisting them on another property, such a shame, I'd bred for Blackhead resistance to the point where they weren't affected, only to lose the pinnacles of that breeding program. Eh, at least now I know how very achievable it is. They were also the least aggressive I'd managed to breed, I had no issues with either. Back to square one now.

Best wishes.

 

[ivan3]

What variety do you have (are these all Broad Breasted meat birds that are going to be harvested)?

Sounds, from your description, that one of the boys was rendered hors de combat by having the beak of another down its throat. The rest of the boys served up the coup de grace. At three months the males are just coming into their own (hormonally) and will engage in mock/real sparring intermittently with little concern for consequences. This will usually be followed by a period of quiescence (pecking order worked out and all are `friends'), followed by usurpation of said order by a hopeful upstart and his allies. Death from sparring is uncommon, but does happen.

With only one putative female in the flock, I'd be tempted to sell the female. A flock composed of only one sex or the other is much less prone to spending more than 10% of their time fighting rather than focusing on efficient feed conversion, etc.

The Wild Easterns that use our acreage have been observed spending whole days engaged in knock-down-drag-outs (during breeding season). Our Royals and Slates, though not utterly pacific, pretty much limit the sparring to intermittent reshuffling of pecking order. We've yet to lose one from the battles.

Keeping your breeding female & chosen male out of sight of the remaining males will also go a long way to keeping the peace (separate run, fencing draped with garden cloth -out of sight/out of mind).

 

[outdoormomof7]

Thank you both, it's a good to get different perspectives. I may see if we can place the female in a separate area for a while. They're almost ready to butcher. They're broad breasted whites for our children's 4-H. I would like to do a different breed at some point.

 

[chooks4life]

The Wild Easterns that use our acreage have been observed spending whole days engaged in knock-down-drag-outs (during breeding season). Our Royals and Slates, though not utterly pacific, pretty much limit the sparring to intermittent reshuffling of pecking order. We've yet to lose one from the battles.

Good post, but the bit I quoted here is just another vote in support of giving Royal Palms a try one day.... Not only do they look good but I hear less extreme aggression stories from them than I do from most other breeds. But, I know it's all down to family line, there is no guaranteed docile breed of anything... Still, they sound and look alright to me. Haven't had Slates before either.

Anyway, best wishes.

 

[fiberdrunk]

So sorry to hear that. Maybe try Narragansetts in the future. They're supposed to be more docile, though I do have a male that got on top of one of my chickens and smashed it. I've got 4 one-month old baby Narragansetts right now (from Welp) and they began strutting and sparring at just a week and a half old. I made a video of it. After reading this thread, I hope it doesn't get worse. I'll be keeping a close eye after reading this thread. We want turkeys for pets.