When keeping several types of poultry at home, the poultry farmer is tempted to collect them in one room. This significantly saves money, since one common poultry house is being built, and caring for the livestock is easier. Further information about whether it is possible to keep chickens and turkeys together, and what conditions the feathered wards will have to create for a comfortable existence.
Is it possible to keep chickens and turkeys together?
Both bird species belong to the same family, Pheasantidae.Chickens and turkeys are land birds that have common habits, similar types of feeding and requirements for warmth and light. They can easily get along in the same room in the yard.
Advantages and disadvantages
The main advantages of keeping land birds together include:
- savings on the construction of one common room, instead of two separate ones;
- saving space on the site, because one common aviary is being built for the birds;
- it is easier and faster to care for the livestock.
Experienced poultry farmers say the main disadvantage of keeping chickens and turkeys together is the susceptibility of turkeys to diseases that are common to all chickens.
Keeping turkeys requires careful adherence to sanitary standards and regular use of medications for prevention.
Keeping turkey poults, especially modern meat crosses, together with chickens is not allowed. Chickens can carry diseases without becoming sick themselves.
One of the disadvantages of sharing poultry housing is the difference in the size of the birds. And although turkeys are rarely pugnacious and do not offend chickens, large individuals require more food. If you do not correctly calculate the feed requirement of the entire livestock, turkeys can “eat up” chickens, taking food from them according to the “right of the most powerful.”
Keeping chickens and turkeys together
If a poultry farmer decides to place his birds in the same room, he needs to think about how to do this with the least damage to the bird and maximum benefit for himself.
Breed selection
You should not add heavy meat breeds to turkey chickens. This bird is extremely capricious and requires a special approach to its maintenance.Turkeys of egg and meat-egg (medium-heavy) breeds get along well with turkey chickens: Tikhoretsk, Moscow White, North Caucasian.
It is better to place large chickens with turkeys - meat and meat-egg chickens (Kuchinskys, Amroks, Orpingtons, Oryol calicos, Australorps).
The necessary conditions
Chickens and turkeys have the same need to be warm and dry. The temperature comfortable for birds is from +15 to +27 degrees. Drafts and dampness are avoided. Large wood shavings, straw cuttings, hay, and fallen leaves are used as bedding in the poultry house.
The area of the chicken coop is calculated based on the number of birds kept there. One adult chicken should have at least 50 square meters. cm, for a turkey at least 80 sq. cm. It is advisable to make the outdoor pen spacious (at least 2 sq. m. per large individual) so that the bird can run.
Perches and nests are built taking into account the size of the turkeys. The thickness of the perch bar should be at least 5 cm, and the size of the nest should be 50 by 60 cm.
Feeders are selected in such a size that it is convenient for the turkey to eat the food, but they are placed at a height that is comfortable for the chickens.
Nutritional Features
The diet of chickens and turkeys consists of grains, vegetables, herbs and animal supplements. The bird must be given mineral feed and vitamins.
If we compare the indicators of ready-made complete feed for adult turkeys and laying hens, then the metabolic energy in the feed for turkeys will be more than 260 kcal, crude protein 18%.
Chicken feed has a similar composition, from which we can conclude that adult birds can be fed with the same grain mixture. However, at the young growth stage, turkey poults need more nutritious and fortified feed than chickens.
Chickens
You can feed chickens with ready-made mixed feed or prepare the grain mixture yourself. The mixture is based on corn, wheat and barley grains in equal parts. To make it better digestible, whole grains are crushed or flattened. The daily grain consumption rate for an adult is 130-150 g.
Add to the grain mash:
- sunflower cake, fuzu, meal;
- dairy products (skim milk, whey, yogurt);
- meat and bone and fish meal, boiled meat or fish;
- fresh vegetables (carrots, pumpkin, beets, cabbage);
- grass or hay cutting, grass meal;
- premix or BMVD;
The total volume of additives should not exceed 25-30% of the volume of the entire mash. Wet food is given to the bird 2-3 times a day so that the food is eaten within an hour. Chalk, limestone, crushed eggshells, charcoal, and red clay are placed in a separate feeder.
Turkeys
The menu described above is suitable for adult turkeys.
The daily grain requirement for an adult bird depends on the weight of the birds and is 200-400 g.
Turkeys graze well and consume a lot of greens (up to 50% of the total weight of food consumed). Fresh grass of legumes, tops of garden plants (carrots, beets), vegetables should be present in the diet daily. An adult turkey eats up to 600 g of greens per day. In winter, fresh grass is replaced with grass meal and hay cutting.
Separately, it should be said about feeding turkey poults from the first days of life. Babies up to a month need very nutritious food, with an energy content of 1200 kJ and a protein level of 28%, crude fiber should be about 5%.
It is difficult to prepare such food at home.To do this, you will need to mix corn, wheat and sunflower cake in equal parts, add milk powder, feed yeast and grass flour, chalk and the BMVD complex. It is much more convenient to feed turkey poults with ready-made complete feed “Start”.
Starting from 30-40 days, young animals can be gradually transferred to a grain mixture (corn and wheat), with the addition of vegetables, herbs and animal products.
Problems when housing birds together
Keeping turkeys and chickens together can lead to obesity of the latter, since the feed will be given with larger individuals in mind. An obese chicken stops laying eggs and may die from heart failure. To avoid such a development of events, it is necessary to accurately calculate the daily amount of grain feed for the entire bird population and strictly adhere to the dosage. Food is given 2-3 times a day, in small portions.
It will not be possible to separate the nesting areas of chickens and turkeys in the same room. And although turkeys can have nest boxes placed on the floor, and chickens can have their nests hung higher, it is not possible to force chickens to lay eggs in specific nests. Laying hens will inevitably throw eggs into turkey nests, and their weight can simply crush the chicken clutch. The solution may be to collect eggs frequently or construct special nests where the eggs will roll into a shelter after being laid.
A joint keeping chickens and turkeys are at risk of diseases common to these species. Particularly dangerous are enterohepatitis, histomoniasis, and coccidiosis. The poultry farmer will have to regularly feed the birds with medications for prevention and maintain perfect cleanliness in the poultry house.
However, young chickens and turkeys should not be kept together until they are 3 months old.
Features of keeping in winter
Adult turkeys are quite unpretentious creatures and, like chickens, willingly walk outside on fine winter days. In order for the bird to make up for the lack of movement in bad weather, heads of cabbage, brooms of grass and young shoots of trees are hung in the barn so that the bird jumps, trying to peck at the delicacy.
In winter, the poultry house should be warm, light and dry. It is necessary to comply with the stocking rate of poultry, avoiding overpopulation.
When housing is crowded, fights and pecking occur more often, and the livestock's immunity decreases.
