Raising chickens and Turkeys together

[Sojourner2]

I've just started a new flock of chickens and am thinking about adding a half dozen or so Turkeys to my 10 layers. Is this a good idea to raise them together?

 

[EeyoreD]

You don't really give enough information for a real answer. Are you going to try to keep them in the same housing? Separate housing? How closely will they interact?

Broadly speaking, raising chickens and turkeys in close proximity can lead to Blackhead disease in turkeys (chickens, while susceptible, are resistant but can be carriers and transmit to the turkeys).

If your turkeys and chickens will be sharing close living quarters you could be courting disaster.

That said, I have turkeys and chickens (the chickens live in a coop and free range during the day, the turkeys, while totally allowed to go in the coop, have decided my truck is the better nightly roost - so they don't sleep/poop together) and haven't had a problem - SO FAR. But again, the turkeys don't spend much, if any, time with the chickens and the ranging area is quite large.

 

[Ridgerunner]

“If” is an awful big word. “If” covers a lot of ground. But I think it is important in this conversation.

If your chickens have blackhead, they can and will give it to the turkeys. If your chickens don’t have blackhead, they can’t. Most chickens don’t have blackhead. This warning is more for “if” you have ever had blackhead in your flock, your chickens probably survived it and will do OK with it but they will always be carriers. You can’t keep turkeys if you have ever had blackhead in your flock.

You can call your county extension agent and ask if blackhead is very prevalent in your area. If your agent is good he/she will find out for you. Unfortunately not all agents are good. That’s another one of those “if’s”.

I’ve raised turkeys and chickens together. They hatched together. I set the turkey eggs a week early so they would hatch at the same time. Mine were midget whites, not the really big broad-breasted turkeys. The turkeys were bigger so you need to provide more room than for the same number of chickens, but they got along OK. There was not any fighting or anything like that, but I only kept the turkeys until Thanksgiving.

One of the problems is that the turkeys can really fly. It’s hard to keep them in. I had to put bird netting over the run to keep the turkeys in. They did roost in the coop with the chickens. Some people have trouble with them roosting high in trees.

One problem is feeding the mixed flock. Turkeys should have a higher protein feed than you normally feed chickens. I fed them all 24% Game Bird Starter for about 4 weeks, then fed them all 20% Flock Raiser the rest of the time. That got to be a little expensive.