Butcher age question

[Ardizzone7]

I have 5 turkeys that are BBB. The y are all 16 weeks old. We weighed one last week to see where they were at as far as size and it was 15lbs. This is live weight obviously. We feed tehm in the morning and evening but make them free range during the day. What live weight is a good weight to butcher. We want about a 18-20 lb turkey dressed weight.

Also, they all look the same. Snoods are all the same length, but 2 seem to present to each other and get aggressive. If I would guess, they are all female, but do females do that?

 

[farmerlor]

That seems just a little heavy for four months but it's been a long time since I raised BBBs. You almost HAVE to butcher them by the time they get to be six months or their hearts will get congested and they'll die or their legs will break under the enormous weight that never had a chance to catch up with the bone growth.
Yeah, if there's no males around one of the females will declare herself alpha. Don't worry about it they usually stop before blood is drawn because those BBBs just don't have the energy to fight for very long. If it were me, and it's not, I'd take them in in about six weeks. They should be over 20 dressed out at that point.

 

[chicken pickin]

I dont think that is too heavy at all for them live weight. My 2 are 13 weeks now and I havent weighed them but I would guess my tom is close to 15lbs and my hen at about 10lbs. BBW are good to process between 20-24 weeks of age. Im not sure what live weight to process at as this is my first go with BBWs, though I would guess a few lbs heavier than what you want at the dressed weight. Maybe between 20-23lbs live, thats just my guess Do You have pics?

 

[animalsRawesome]

When I had turkeys a couple of years ago, I got them in the middle of June and butchered them the week before Thanksgiving. Saying they were HUGE is an understatement... we literally had to cut them in half to get them into the pan. But, the moral of the story... LOL, is that even though they were that big, none of mine had any health problems. I think you will be Ok letting them go a few more weeks.

 

[Pele]

In my experience, they can vary year from year, so don't focus so much on timing as on their weight. Once they hit around 20lbs of live weight, take them in. I start watching their weight at 8 to 10 weeks.