Turkeys and goats

[debir1966]

We have 5 BBW turkeys who will be 14 weeks old this wednesday (the 3rd). They are just now all of them getting big enough they are not able to climb through a stock panel (they were pretty diverse in size, 1 huge, 1 large, 2 medium and 1 small - now they are evening out a little with 2 large, 2 medium and 1 small).

Anyway, my original plan was to put them in with our 2 boer goats (both does) because I didn't want to keep them in my chicken coop. They would have access to the goat pasture and the barn for roosting/weather protection.

But I wanted to get some opinions before I did so. My cousin has her turkeys with her goats, but they are all adults (both the goats and the turkeys) and get along fine. Our goats are only 8 months old.

One of my biggest concerns is how I would feed the turkeys separate from the goats, because the goats would, of course, "gobble" up any turkey feed I put down and since the BBW do not fly (well, they do try, but don't get much lift LOL), I couldn't place it on the other side of a divider or anything like that so that the turkeys could get over but the goats couldn't. Also, because the turkeys are so big, I dont think I could make a small enough opening for them to go through that the goats wouldn't be able to squeeze through also.

Any suggestions/input would be greatly appreciated! The turkeys are in my chicken coop right now, we free-range our chickens during the day and the turkeys also. I do have a small space I could lock the turkeys into in the barn for a few days or put them into at night to teach them their new place to sleep.

Thank you!

 

[frank53061]

You do have a problem there LOL the amount of time I have been around Goats if there is food on the other side of a door they would slip threw the key hole to get to the food LOL.
The only thing I can think of is to pen the Goats up some were they cant get out of or pen the Turkeys up some were the goats cant get into at least while there feeding what ever would be easier..

 

[Celie]

You say you have 5 BBW turkeys that are 14 weeks old that are large medium and small in size? If they are all the same age, I can understand the large would be the males and the medium would be female, but I don't understand a BBW at 14 weeks being 'Small"?
It's none of my business

, I was just wondering?

 

[debir1966]

You do have a problem there LOL the amount of time I have been around Goats if there is food on the other side of a door they would slip threw the key hole to get to the food LOL.
The only thing I can think of is to pen the Goats up some were they cant get out of or pen the Turkeys up some were the goats cant get into at least while there feeding what ever would be easier..

Yeah, my goats are just like that LOL. My cousin just throws the turkeys food on the ground and says her goats don't get much because she really scatters it, but with BBW, I think they need a fairly constant ration of food to put on the growth... I may not be able to put them in with the goats after all

You say you have 5 BBW turkeys that are 14 weeks old that are large medium and small in size? If they are all the same age, I can understand the large would be the males and the medium would be female, but I don't understand a BBW at 14 weeks being 'Small"?
It's none of my business

, I was just wondering?

There was actually quite a size difference between the largest BBW and the smallest BBW - they are evening out more now, but there is still quite a difference in those two. The others are catching up with the biggest one, though not quite as big as he is. I will try and get a pic of the biggest and the smallest for comparison

Here they are the other day, all napping in the sun.


You can see the two smaller ones compaired to the 3 bigger ones (or at least, I think I can LOL).



Here the smallest is standing by one of the bigger ones (the purple feathers are blue coat put on to prevent feather picking).