I am getting 2 white breasted turkey babies tomorrow. I have 3 week old cornish cross chicks right now as well. Can they be together in the brooder together?
Turkey Babies
NO
i would not EVER put new chicks in with older ones, unless you hatched them out. they should ALWAYS be quarantined 30 days.
besides, the turkey chicks need turkey starter crumble, and chickens can give a bacteria to turkeys that kill them.
forgive my adamance on this matter, i have seen so many folks on this forum lose chicks lately...
I don't mean to be argumentative, but I always put mine together. Never had a problem. The ones I have right now are two week old chicks and week old turkeys. I don't have a lot of room in the spring so I have brooded chicks, ducks, turkeys and geese all together. If one group gets bigger faster and needs to be moved I do it then. I would make sure that the crosses aren't big enough to pick on the turkeys, but turkeys catch up fast. They all start out on non medicated chick starter. After a month or so of that, then they all get high protine crumbles untill I sort out who gets butchered and who goes in the hen house. The ducks run around the yard and I only have to supliment them with a little food. Last year I had some 40 pound turkeys and didn't loose any.
I guess idealy, we would quarentien everything, but not everybody has the space. I take the risk, I guess.
hey, you aren't arguing, and you probalby have better answers than I. i only have MHO... ^_^
I am not sure how big the turkey babies are when I will get them at 3 days old. This is a picture of my cornish babies right now at 3 weeks old.
I just got my poults in on wed, I have decided to separate them from the cornish.
so precious and tiny! [like your nails too!]
we hope to get turkeys one day. wanted them last year but got a baby instead, so i call him a turkey!
would love to continue seeing pictures as they grow...
tf
TF, I will post photos as they grow
I saw poults at the feedstore a couple weeks ago--they were so sweet--but I'm not quite ready for turkeys yet. It would be interesting to see how they change as they grow....the newly hatched ones looked like chicken chicks with longer necks---I have no idea how they look as they mature. Make sure you post those pictures pumpkinfreak!
Will do Lodi
Hi "birdbrains", I mean that in a sweet way,
My dad raised all kinds of birds and I always called him a birdbrain. It was a term of endearment.
My hubby is trying to hatch out bourbon red turkeys and we have had miserable luck. He is using an incubator. They seem to be trickier than chickens. So far we have had only maybe 4 and of those 4 only two have lived more than a couple of days.
We have one in the house now and we have named him Quinton. He thinks he is a person as he hops out of his box away from his heat lamp and comes to whereever we are. He eats from our hands. Soon he will join his older brother, Walter, up at our daughter and son in law's who are raising some chicks for laying hens. As you can see we have almost made pets of these darn things.
Anyway anybody have any experience you can share about hatching turkeys?
i wish... maineiac has some in the vator...
Hey Lenjo, where is mount angel at?
Mt Angel is 40 miles south of Portland and about 20 miles north east(mostly east) of Salem. Look on a map and it is the home of the Oktoberfest. Silverton is 8 miles south and Woodburn is 10 miles northwest. Any help?
We had chicks and broad breasted Bronze turkey poults together...and the poults grew so fast that they picked on the chicks and we finally had to separate them into their own pen. They did fine even if it was too early for them...they were just starting to feather out. We gave them a warm place to hide, tons of weeds & seeds, and they just grew and grew and grew.
This year we got a Heritage turkey called White midgets. The poults are smaller and are in with the SLW and PR and are doing fine. They all pick every once in a while but hold their own. At a week, they are sitting on the lower branches of the limb ...just like the chicks are. They come when called to eat the treats (broccoli flowers and lettuce shreds) and one of them cries every evening to be picked up and cuddled so we can watch DH's TV show. Baby comes to my voice and cuddles right down until the show is over, then back to the big place with the gang and under the "lamby momma" they have to hid under. This bunch is a lot more fun than the Broad breasted.
Jeri of Sandbox Farm in Wisconsin
Lenjo, thanks for telling me where Mt. Angel was at, I live in Grants Pass Oregon
I have been there several times. I like that Rogue River valley area, very picturesque.
Here is another picture of my turkey babies at 1 week old.
they are REALLY growing! how are the cornish doing?
The cornish are now 4 weeks old as of yesterday. I have another 30 coming to me on May 21st. My baby turkeys sure make a lot of noise, they seem to like being held. I take them out in the grass when the sun is out, they seem to like it. I will wait until they are bigger to introduce them to the cornish out in the chicken coop.