Raising chickens and turkeys together, what to feed???

[DuckyDestiny]

so i have a small group of chickens. 6 laying hens, 1 rooster, and just recently 2 chicks (pullets). Im going to be getting some turkeys in late april and was curious what i feed once they are large enough to join the larger flock? i know they will be eating together and i see food is labeled chicken/turkey. is there a feed that is good to feed your layer hens and the turkeys and rooster???

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Turkeys need gamebird food when their growing. When their grown, they should do fine on laying pellets.

 

[DuckyDestiny]

awesome, that's good to hear. do you happen to know about how long they are "growing" before layer pellets are fine? i'm getting holland white turkeys if that matters.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

I'd say once their full sized with all their feathers. It sounds like Hollands get pretty big, so you can always supplement with Dubia roaches (for protein) or mix game feed half & half with layer feed. The biggest issue is just to make sure they have enough protein. If you want to raise them to lay, then mixing half & half would be fine, but if you want the toms ready for butchering, feeding them straight game bird will make the best growth rate.

But the biggest would be fully feathered, since that takes a lot of protein. So long as meat isn't your factor, then you'll be fine.

Also, chickens can eat gamebird fine. When we had turkeys we would simply switch out what we were feeding daily.. One day laying feed, the other day gamebird feed.


Also! Turkeys are tall. you can use this to your advantage, and make an area the chickens can't fly to, but the turkeys can reach to (though they might not want to bother).

Or you can do separate feedings (we did this when we had a lone turkey, we'd let him eat gamebird food whenever we were out there, since he always seemed hungry. But this wouldn't be too practical for multiple animals)

 

[DuckyDestiny]

ya i dont plan on butchering them. pets lol i plan on raising any possible mated lays for meat if i end up with a tom and a hen. two toms and i'll sell one and try for another hen. but either way my plan for these turkeys is to keep as loved pets. =)

so it sounds like i'll just keep them seperated from the flock until they have full feathers in. sounds like the easiest method for me.

 

[CochinBrahmaLover]

Sounds like a good deal. Have fun with them! I love turkeys. Personally my favorites are midget whites - their rather dumb since their meat birds, and the little poults always run around and follow me !

 

[DuckyDestiny]

i was going to get the midget whites if my local store wasn't able to get the whilte hollands, but they were so i ordered those. maybe next time the white midgets lol