Tom Fighting?

[Stacykins]

So I had some unfortunate ratios, out of the turkeys I hatched and kept (gave my little cousin a few for her family's farm) I have four boys and one girl. They're just over 20 weeks now. From time to time I've noticed that the boys will chase each other and do vigorous neck fighting/chest bumping. Will it progress to anything more aggressive like them flogging and hurting themselves? Or will they figure out their place in the pecking order and eventually stop?

The sparing is between the subordinate males, since the dominate tom, The Don, is well established. My turkeys are collectively known as the Yard Mafia since they are always up in your business. Trying to water plants? They're demanding protection bribes. Stacking wood? They're hiding smuggled goods in the pile. Digging a hole? They're trying to bury the rival they whacked.

 

[nivtup]

We have had Toms that just sparred, and we have had Toms initiate a fight to the death (we broke them up).

The situation was that we had three younger toms reach maturity, and they ganged up on the old tom. We put the old tom in his own pen to recover, and he was never able to go back to the flock.



Good luck.

 

[Lotsapaints]

I've yet to have them gang up on the boss tom but when they are going thru puberty they can get pretty rough so far mine have gotten over that and get along together. With my turkeys the Bourbons seem the best to get along when I have more toms in the pen than I should then the Midgets. The worst for fighting seem to be the Auburns and Narragansetts if you have the space when you just run toms together it calms down on the fighting my experience is that hens can be way meaner than a tom to other turkeys.