Turkeys?

baymule

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I'm starting my breed research......



Royal Palms have the least filled out breast of the turkey varieties. :hit

 

CrealCritter

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I'm starting my breed research......



Royal Palms have the least filled out breast of the turkey varieties. :hit

When you narrow your search, let me know I have a pretty good book you can use to help you make a more informed decision.
 

Rammy

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I know that if I ever raise another turkey, it will be in its own seperate pen. Even as a few days old, it was attaking the chicks. When it got older, it started killing my hens and tried killing one of my roosters. Instead of waiting til it was about 4 months. It still dressed about ten pounds.
 

CrealCritter

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I know that if I ever raise another turkey, it will be in its own seperate pen. Even as a few days old, it was attaking the chicks. When it got older, it started killing my hens and tried killing one of my roosters. Instead of waiting til it was about 4 months. It still dressed about ten pounds.

Odd... Mine are not agressive at all but the hens do get "pecky" when sitting. But so are my chicken hens when sitting, actually chicken hens are worse, they draw blood.
 

baymule

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I've seen so many pictures of poultry yards with chickens and turkeys together. I suppose there are cranky turkeys out there, like you said @Rammy, he dressed out at about 10 pounds. :thumbsup

I figure on having a separate pen and coop.
 

Rammy

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Odd... Mine are not agressive at all but the hens do get "pecky" when sitting. But so are my chicken hens when sitting, actually chicken hens are worse, they draw blood.
I walked out to feed one morning and the turkey was ontop of my rooster holding him down and had his head in its beak banging it on the ground. The turkey was processed the next day.
 

CrealCritter

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I walked out to feed one morning and the turkey was ontop of my rooster holding him down and had his head in its beak banging it on the ground. The turkey was processed the next day.

And just where did this turkey learn this behavior? :Lol 10lbs and no turkey hens. he probably thought he was a chicken and the hens were his to mate. Yes I've had Tom's mount chickens. Chickens are little hussies, they just lay there.

Seriously if your going to keep just a Tom, keep him separate for any other fowl or at the very least get him two turkey hens, the more turkey hens the better. Never keep two turkey Tom's together with turkey hens even in sight of the Tom's. One morning you'll wake up to one dead Tom. Because they will fight to the death for the right to breed the hens. Which is what a suspect happened in your case.
 
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Finnie

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I kept my turkeys with my chickens for 5 years and it was mostly successful. There were some problems once in a while.

Like @CrealCritter said, two turkey hens minimum for a tom if he’s going to be with chickens. I had two turkey hens, and when one went broody, the other one was not enough to keep the tom satisfied, and he started mating my pullets. I didn’t know he was doing it. I had one pullet turn up lame and not recover. Then another. I was starting to worry I had some kind of disease in my flock, when I saw the tom mounting and smashing a third pullet. I was able to rescue her in time, and I sold that tom.

Another problem was tom-rooster fights. That wasn’t such a big deal, because they were just fighting for pecking order. The more stupid roosters took a lot longer to realize they couldn’t win a fight with a turkey. But most of the time the fight would get settled without too much blood shed.

Then the final problem which prompted me to sell my last two jennies was seeing them beating up on my pullets. It was either a pecking order thing, or that the jennies just took a disliking to a few specific pullets. But either way I was tired of dealing with turkeys so I decided to be done with them. (For a while. Maybe if my facilities are different some day I will get them again, because I really do like turkeys.)

Hatching and selling poults was fairly profitable. Around here I can get $10-12 for a newly hatched poult, and I would raise the price $1 per week until they sold.
 
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