We bought a pair of adult approximately 1 year old Bourbon Red turkeys while we are waiting for our little bourbon red poults to grow. One is a Tom and the other hen. We have them in a pen and the poults are in the barn to grow as they are only a few weeks old. The Tom non-stop struts and mates his girl incessantly. For the first week, the tom was fine, minding his own business when we come in to feed, water and clean. He's been with us for 3 weeks now. Recently, though, the tom has been starting to get extremely aggressive, charges the gate as we are opening it, and when we are in the pen, we have to carry a broom or stick to make him back off or he will charge us. He is a very large bird, so it is quite an experience to see him do a full charge, and sometimes jump at us. We've tried just ignoring him or just pushing him away with the broom, but he will sneak up behind us and try to charge. Are bourbon reds normally this aggressive, or is Mr. Tom bound for freezer camp? Once our poults are grown we have discussed culling him as long as we have a tom in the bunch we are raising (right now we can't tell their sex). Any advice on how to teach him to not be so aggressive or to show him that we are the boss? This is our first time raising turkeys, so any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks!
