[thesuffolksmallholding]

Hi,
I am thinking of getting some turkeys June time to raise for Christmas dinner this year. However someone recently told me about a disease called blackhead, and that it I shouldn't keep turkeys because it would put my chickens at risk of contracting this disease. Is this correct?
I wouldn't be keeping them in with my chickens, but they would be a couple of metres away from their enclosure?
So... will blackhead be a problem?

[NewToThis]

A lot of people do keep them together (We don't, more for practical reasons than anything else).

As I understand it, although chickens can carry blackhead they don't generally suffer symptoms, where as for Turkeys it can be fatal.

I think it is spread via faeces?? So 2 meter separation  should be fine, I myself am not too worried about it with ours and just add apple cider vinegar to both turkey and chicken water anyway. I think there is something you can add to the feed too - cayenne maybe?

[Eve]

Cayenne pepper helps chickens with blackhead but doesn't save turkeys.


I left a run in a separate field open to the elements for a year before putting a few turkeys on it - they were for Christmas so were only on there for a few months - and they were fine, though that's no guarantee, of course, it's the only time we had turkeys and there were only 4 of them.

[waddy]

Ours are kept next to each other (mesh fence in between) as our adult male will try and mount the hens. Never so far had a problem with blackhead. Turkeys are more susceptible when young and ours were totally separate until grown. You must worm regularly as blackhead is a protozoan parasite which can be present in poultry worms and earthworms and can be caught from wild birds anyway. Good luck with them!


 
Helen