Turkey in the coop

[Nibs19]

Curious if I could raise a turkey in my chicken coop with my chickens? I have a decent sized coop and run but birds mainly free range all no snow months

What’s your thoughts or concerns with raising a few turkeys with chickens? Reading mixed reviews online

Thanks

 

[Debbie292d]

I found a thread on it which explains two sides of it but sounds like no to me. My neighbor farmer has turkeys and chickens and she houses them separately but reading that thread explains why.

 

[R2elk]

Curious if I could raise a turkey in my chicken coop with my chickens? I have a decent sized coop and run but birds mainly free range all no snow months

What’s your thoughts or concerns with raising a few turkeys with chickens? Reading mixed reviews online

Thanks

Turkeys should not be raised alone unless your sole purpose is to process them as soon as they are big enough. They are very social birds and need other turkeys for companionship.

Turkey poults are very easy to imprint. One of the reasons a poult should not be raised with chickens is that the imprinting causes the turkey to not be able to understand that chickens are not turkeys. This can end very badly for the chickens once the turkey reaches mature size and starts treating the chickens the same way it would treat other turkeys.

Turkey poults require a high protein turkey or game bird starter that has the higher levels of protein, lysine, methionine and niacin they needed for proper growth and development.

 

[bothpawsoff]

I found a thread on it which explains two sides of it but sounds like no to me. My neighbor farmer has turkeys and chickens and she houses them separately but reading that thread explains why.

Does anyone know what kind of a coop for northern IL? Do we need heat lamps for them? This is our first go around with turkeys.

 

[R2elk]

Does anyone know what kind of a coop for northern IL? Do we need heat lamps for them? This is our first go around with turkeys.

Adult turkeys are very hardy. Mine spend the nights on outside roosts in all kinds of weather.

Their roosts are located where they are sheltered from the prevailing wind.

They did fine in last year's -40⁰F.

They do need shade from the sun even in the winter.