Turkey and Chickens

[proud_chicken_owner]

Is it alright to have a male Turkey with a flock of hens? they seem to be getting along all right, but I just want to know if it is recommended

 

[Ridgerunner]

Hi, welcome to the forum. Glad you joined.

I'm not sure what your concerns are. Why are you asking? If you are worried if he will mate with your hens, mine never did. That doesn't mean none ever will, just that the one I had didn't.

If your concern is that he will hurt them if he does mate them, I would not have worried if mine did. He was a Midget White so not all that much bigger than some of the larger roosters and my hens were full-sized fowl, not bantams. If you have a huge broad-breasted type of turkey or if you have a smaller breed of turkey with bantam hens that might have been more of a concern.

Some people recommend against keeping any turkey with any chicken because of Blackhead. Blackhead is a disease that kills turkeys but usually doesn't bother chickens that much. If you have Blackhead in your flock the chickens will give it to the turkeys and the turkeys die. Once infected the chickens are carriers for life. You often see flocks with both chickens and turkeys together, which means Blackhead is not in that flock.

Do yo have other concerns? Those are the ones that immediately come to mind as possibilities.

 

[proud_chicken_owner]

My main concern was that he would end up hurting them, because when we give them scraps, he will be kind of violent, and some of our hens are smaller than the others

 

[yesterDAYNE]

I would not recommend keeping a tom turkey without any turkey hens for him. If raised around chickens, turkeys will imprint and be unable to tell the difference between them and chickens. Turkeys can be relentless when they squabble with each other, and if to a chicken, could seriously injure or kill them. I'm not saying all turkeys will, just that it's a big danger to do so.

My turkeys lived with chickens for a few years. Nothing happened, but my tom had turkey hens to mess with so they left the chickens alone.

 

[proud_chicken_owner]

I noticed one time when we fed them scraps, he grabbed one of the chicken's beaks and kinda thrashed her around. I checked on her afterwards and she seemed to be fine though