Turkeys and chickens raised together?

[Melinarosav]

I unexpectedly ended up with a turkey. I bought some more ducks considering I was at 1 drake and 1 duck and she was getting annoyed with him, well to make a long story short she did not have change so she decided to give me a turkey. It’s so cute I could not resist! My baby turkey named Carl was all alone and I read that they don’t do well alone. I called all the rural kings in my area and none have had any. Soo needless to say we got him some baby chickens to cuddle with. Well not the chickens follow Carl around and Carl cuddles with them and moms them almost. They lay all over him and he has no problems with it. Is this normal? Will this end well? Any suggestions?

 

[R2elk]

I unexpectedly ended up with a turkey. I bought some more ducks considering I was at 1 drake and 1 duck and she was getting annoyed with him, well to make a long story short she did not have change so she decided to give me a turkey. It’s so cute I could not resist! My baby turkey named Carl was all alone and I read that they don’t do well alone. I called all the rural kings in my area and none have had any. Soo needless to say we got him some baby chickens to cuddle with. Well not the chickens follow Carl around and Carl cuddles with them and moms them almost. They lay all over him and he has no problems with it. Is this normal? Will this end well? Any suggestions?

The behavior that you are seeing at this point is normal. Unfortunately it really is a bad idea to raise a poult with chicks due to how easily poults can be imprinted. Once the poult reaches maturity, it will not have the ability to understand that there is a difference between it and chickens. If the poult turns out to be a male, once its hormones start raging, it can be a serious danger to chickens as it tries to breed them.

The other problem is that if blackhead is a problem in your area, it can be a death sentence to turkeys that are housed with chickens.

 

[Elfie4306]

I unexpectedly ended up with a turkey. I bought some more ducks considering I was at 1 drake and 1 duck and she was getting annoyed with him, well to make a long story short she did not have change so she decided to give me a turkey. It’s so cute I could not resist! My baby turkey named Carl was all alone and I read that they don’t do well alone. I called all the rural kings in my area and none have had any. Soo needless to say we got him some baby chickens to cuddle with. Well not the chickens follow Carl around and Carl cuddles with them and moms them almost. They lay all over him and he has no problems with it. Is this normal? Will this end well? Any suggestions?

Definitely keep in mind what R2elk said. I would keep an eye on them as they grow up. If the turkey's a hen, (in my experience), it should be fine. If it's a tom, it really depends on it's behavior. We have a turkey pair that sort of leads/protects our chickens. The most we've ever seen the tom try to do with the chickens is strut past them. And our hen usually keeps them all together with gentle pecks. So I would keep an eye on them, and if the turkey starts trying to breed with them, unfortunately you should probably separate them. But so far with ours everything is going well.

Good luck!