When I was a kid, we had an old-time farmer for a neighbor and he allowed his Bronze tom turkey to run with his chickens with never a problem. We ourselves had 5 white turkeys that lived with our chickens during the day (they roosted high on the horse corral fence at night, chickens in the coop) with no problems--but we raised them from poults so they were very tame & calm. They were for meat, and were processed at one year of age--3 females and two males.

I had a female Bronze turkey that we got as an adult a few years back, that blended in seamlessly with our existing flock, she even went into the coop with them at night, although she didn't roost with the chickens. Everything was fine for about a year and a half, until one day when I was out in the yard and witnessed her out of the clear blue, reach over and grab my favorite white cochin hen by the neck and shake her until she was dead--it took about 3 seconds. :( It was over before I even moved, and was an unprovoked attack. We got rid of the turkey after that.

I think the trick is to raise the birds together from babies. Guineas are supposed to be fantastic at bug control. And those turkeys we raised for our table were delicious...although two were so big they didn't fit in my mom's oven, and we had to cook our Thanksgiving dinners two years in a row over at the high school, which was luckily right next door. :) Hurray for small towns!

Velvet ~:>

Lori, also check out SandHill Preservation for birds. Small local outfit in Iowa. Good to support the small outfits sometimes.

Duane