Backyard Poultry Forum

Hi,

I know chooks have a couple of diseases, disorders, parasites that will kill turkeys but just how far away do they have to be from chickens?

Are there other meat birds that can be raised easily & around chooks?

My turkey and chooks and ducks are raised together in brooders.Ducks get moved out quicker because of the mess they make As adults they are all together and I do not have any problems with them all .

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Sebright Club of Australia
sebrights-au.webs.com

Great. Maybe I will try a couple in the future.

Good to know it is possible. Husband is now mentioning geese would be nice.

Some flocks of chooks will have histomoniasis and some will not, I generally warn against housing chooks and turkeys together but in reality most people do keep turkeys and chooks together and there is generally no problems. The main risk period is between about 12 and 18 weeks (though they may contract it before that and it just takes a while to build up in the system, not sure), adult turkeys can handle a load of histomoniasis but like chooks can infect younger turkeys, frequent worming of your flocks can help but poultry worms aren't the only way histomoniasis gets into turkeys.

Blackhead IS a treatable disease and heritage turkeys are far less succeptible to dying from it compared to commercial flocks that drop like flies, but it does mean you have to keep a close eye on your flock looking for symptoms and treat the whole flock of youngsters as soon as you notice a symptom (with ronivet-s or flagyl). I've had at least 20-30 turkeys show obvious signs of blackhead, but only 1 death. My routine hasn't changed much but the rate of infection has decreased alot over the years and I think its mostly from breeding for immunity to blackhead.

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-Tony
Oriental Gamefowl, Turkeys and Ducks

mine have always lived with chooks, few barnys but they get over it-- never had an issue with diesese

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Malay Game- proper chooks

tg451, what do you treat your turkeys with for blackhead?

He mentions flagyl or ronnivet-s to treat.

If running chickens with turkeys there is less risk of blackhead in larger pens, drier conditions and when they are maintained scrupulously worm free.

In that case I'll pass. I'm in the upper Yarra Valley, catchment area. Cold & wet winters. Used to be a running joke up this way that it would rain 11 months of the year and the trees would drip for 1 month.

We'll you'd need a nice dry shed there anyway! Just change the litter on the floor regularly.