Turkey chicks are very stupid

[chrismahon]

Reading Lewis Wright's 1867 edition at the moment and have got to the chapter on Turkeys and rearing. There is no mention in this book about incubators so far, so I presume he considered them so unreliable as not worth mentioning. May appear in the 1901 edition? They have hatched and his comment is "Turkey chicks are very stupid and do not seem to know how to peck." He then goes on to explain a method to solve the problem which is to slip 2 chicken eggs under the broody about 5 days after she starts incubating the turkey eggs. The chicks hatch at the same time and the baby chickens show the baby turkeys what to do.

Is this still the case?

 

[AlexArt]

My broody hen that had 3 turkey chicks last year had no problems with them - they got the idea from her of how to peck, I think if you raised them in an incubator without anything else or a mum I'd say they maybe pretty slow to peck as they are just like peachicks and have a brain the size of a tadpoles and don't seem to have the same drive as a chicken chick!!!
They are also quite good at commiting suicide too, so a small pen for a few weeks is a must as they tend to fly everywhere at the slightest sound then they freeze and go to ground only to pop up later when mum has dissapeared, as chickens don't really call like a turkey hen does, so they end up as snacks for anything!!! I kept mine in with the hen until they were about 3 weeks old, then moved hen and chicks to a small pen in the veg patch, a couple of weeks in there until they were big enough not to attract the cats they got the freedom of the whole veg patch!! I'll be doing the same this year!!