Does anyone here raise turkeys?

[the simple life]

Just wondering what I would need to know here.Do they try to fly away? How big do they normally get? what is their temperment? Do they get along with chickens?
Thanks.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

We have turkeys, and no, you cannot keep them with the chickens. The turkeys can develop a sickness called black head from being exposed to chicken poo.

Depends on which turkeys you get on whether they fly. They all like to roost, from we have experienced. I have a pair of Royal Palms and they fly into the trees. We also have 2 broad breasted bronze and they can't get off the ground because they are too heavy.

Used to have Bourbon reds, and they flew up into the trees, ontop of our house, etc.

Now the BBBronze cannot reproduce naturally. They are meat birds. The royal palms are a heritage turkey and can reproduce naturally and the hens will set.

Turkeys have excellent memory, and do not forget! If someone abuses them, especially a Tom, he will remember and will have it out for that person FOREVER! They hold grudges!! We found that out when my dad teased our Bourbon Red named Charlie. Charlie never forgot and everytime they came to visit, Charlie would run for the car in attack mode and would flog the crap outta my step dad!

ETA: Size also depends on which breed you get. I like my royal palms because the jenny's only get to about 10-12 pounds and the toms 12-15 pounds, so not large at all.
The BBBronze can get to 50+ pounds and a spanse of 4 ft! I can't imagine how one that big will fit in my oven! (If my husband will ever consent to butchering and eating them! )

 

[Beekissed]

We had turkeys growing up and we kept them with the chickens with no problems(we free ranged). Ditto on the size being relative to the breed. The turkeys we had were more dumb than chickens, if you can imagine that.

My sis runs turkeys in with her chickens and they free range like ours did. Her red bronze hen came in from the woods with some wild-crossed babies the other day! Her big tom follows her around all puffed up and hissing...in full strut mode...makes me feel like he's going to jump up and breed. I don't like turkeys at all!

Ours were all too big to fly into the trees and roost.

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Our turkeys free range, but not all of my chickens do.

And I never let the turkeys into the chicken coops.

 

[farm_mom]

This is my first year raising Narragansetts. We free-range ours with our chickens and ducks, but they all have separate coops and runs. They all get along fine while on range, and I only had one turkey who got to be a bit if a bully with the chickens, but he soon calmed down and the chickens are much quicker and always got away from the unwanted attention.

Mine have never tried to fly away. (But yes, they can fly.) They are very curious, and prefer human company when free-ranging. Often if we go in the house after letting them out, they all come up and watch us at the windows. They don't just go about their business like the chickens and ducks do. They really imprint on you.

We just butchered our excess toms and at 6 months they weighed 10-15lbs. Which was fine with us, because 9 turkeys take up ALOT of freezer space!

 

[the simple life]

What I have been offered are bronze turkeys. Any thoughts on these?

 

[farm_mom]

Are they standard bronze or broad breasted bronze? Both are fine, it just depends what your goals are in raising turkeys. If you want a backyard breeder flock, than you want the standard bronze. If your intent is to raise meat for the season, then the Broad breasted bronze is your bird. The BB types are similar to the Cornish X chickens in that they cannot mate naturally and can only be grown to a certain age/weight before their legs give out and health deteriorates. The standard bronze is a heritage breed and similar to a dual purpose chicken in that it can mate on it's own, but they are a smaller bird and don't produce as much breast meat as the BB types.

 

[patandchickens]

Do any of y'all know happen how the feed conversion efficiency of turkeys compares with chickens? Which is a more economical way of producing X lbs of meat?

Pat, mulling over turkeys in a slow eventual sort of way

 

[the simple life]

I am thinking of just keeping them as a backyard flock, pets. I raise the chickens for fun, and the eggs are great too. The turkeys would just be an addition to our little back yard farm here.
Not for meat, and since they don't lay eggs that people woud eat(right) then just to have around.
I think they are standards, if they ended up being some huge bird meant for meat then I guess I will sell them off to someone who would want to process them, or have someone process them for me.
Don't really know, as I would rather have them as pets and this kind of just came up.
Someone offered them to me because of some chicken eggs she sent me for hatching were broken by the post office and she put these in as a bonus.
She referred to them as just bronze turkey eggs.
I looked them up and they said there is the improved and unimproved bronze turkeys.
The internet says the unimproved are more rare than other breeds. Less than a thousand in the United States. That is all the info that I was able to get.

 

[farm_mom]

I am thinking of just keeping them as a backyard flock, pets. I raise the chickens for fun, and the eggs are great too. The turkeys would just be an addition to our little back yard farm here.
Not for meat, and since they don't lay eggs that people woud eat(right) then just to have around.

Then I would think the standard bronze would work wonderfully for you since you don't have to worry about the leg and health issues of the Broad Breasted type. Oh, and yes, you can eat turkey eggs. I hear they're delicious!

Here's a link to the standard bronze:
http://feathersite.com/Poultry/Turkeys/BRKBronze.html

And here's what the Broad Breasted look like:
http://feathersite.com/Poultry/Turkeys/BRKBBBronze.html