Turkey babies ready to go out to the coop?

[Gloria]

I am a new turkey momma. I have 2 BR turkeys that are going to be 6 weeks old tomorrow. I need to find out if they can go out in the coop with the chickens yet?

I will keep them in the large brooder for awhile so the big mean chickens can't hurt them. I also need to know if they still need the heat lamp on them, inside the house or in the coop? Here is a pic of my babies....

Thanks for your help!

 

[spydertoys]

Quote:
I have my 3 week old poults in the barn already..in a cage though. If they are not going to be caged they shouldn't be housed with the chickens. Once these start to outgrow the cage, I will move them to the Turkey barn.

 

[chickenannie]

I would say your poults are at the stage where they've outgrown their brooder, but they are definitely not ready to be with chickens yet. They are not fully feathered so they still need heat, especially at night depending on the temps. They are still fairly defenseless at 6 weeks old. But they would probably do great to be outside, if you can put them in a small pen on the grass during the day or for a few hours a day ( I used to use a rabbit hutch with a small run that I could move around the yard. If that seems too complicated, I would enlarge your current brooder (add extra walls and give them a bigger space to live in). Or put them in a coop separated from the chickens.

I would not have them around chickens until they are at least chicken-sized, which could be another 2 months.

Good luck!

 

[Gloria]

So they are old enough to go out in the coop in the big brooder? And they still need the heat lamp on them for a little while longer? How much longer should I keep the light on them, 2 more weeks?

I tried turning the heat lamp off on them the other day (while inside the house). I just turned on the floursent light in the ceiling. But they yelled up a storm at me. lol

 

[chickenannie]

Quote:
If they yelled, they probably missed the heat. My 6 weeks old still hang out under momma hen so I think they do like the warmth even at that age.

To clarify, one of my recommendations was to keep them in your brooder but just to enlarge it to give them more space in it for another 2-3 weeks.

You could also keep them in that brooder, but take them outside for an hour or so every day so they can get adjusted.

I don't really understand how your coop is set up, but I think if they are in the vicinity of chickens at that age they will definitely get pecked and attacked and may get injured. Young turkeys don't have the aggressiveness of young chickens. So, if you want to take them out of the brooder, I would still make sure they are separated somehow from the chickens (and also since they don't have a momma hen to protect them from the other chickens).

My turkeys were in a separate coop until they were 10 weeks old, and then they free-ranged with chickens, but they never actually roosted in the chicken coop.

Let us know if you have more questions.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

I agree with Annie, you don't want them outside until they are fully feathered, they can chill very easy.

On the heat lamp this is how we do ours. Start with a 250 watt red bulb, raise it up every 4 or 5 days. You can wait longer but we are usually pressed for brooder space this time of year to we rush them some. Once the lamp is about 24 inches they aren't getting that much heat from it so we switch bulbs to a regular 100 watt clear light bulb. Lower the lamp to about 12 inches and go again. After that they don't need heat anymore. This all factors in with the outside temp also. It's going to be 90 here today so they don't need any heat.

We don't put ours out with the rest of the flock until about 16 weeks but that is because of feeding - we are still feeding them a higher protien feed.

Steve in NC