Could this be a wild?

[ColbyNTX]

I got several eggs this spring from people here in East Texas. I drive around all day everyday for my job so when I see people with birds, I stop and ask if they sell eggs. Most people will just give them to me. Anyway, some of the eggs a guy gave me, he said he had rio's and easterns. I didn't see the adults but you know when most people say that, they really have standard bronze. I didn't really care because I just wanted them for meat birds, not breeding stock. This Jake is about 8.5 months old but he is darker than my bronze and his legs are much skinnier and darker than my bronze. What do you think?

 

[Lagerdogger]

It looks like a wild to me. The tail coverts ant the tail band are very dark, seems too dark for a standard bronze. But I have never had wild turkeys myself. There were a couple of threads in the last few months describing wild turkeys. You might want to search for them.

 

[7&8]

I had eighteen wild ones cruise through this morning. I have free range chickens - don't keep turkeys, and sorry, don't know turkey terminology

But - the photos definitely look like the wild ones here. I had an opportunity to study them very closely this morning. The bars on the lower wings appeared more solidly white, though, not striped as in your photo. They were mixed sex & age - mixed young from late hatch this year, year old hens, & year old Toms, it appeared.

We are wicked over run with the rascals here, though we have all the predators one could ask for: coyote; fox; raccoon; etc. And they are a little too domesticated from living in such close proximity to backyard flocks & from people who toss out corn for them. The birds I see seem healthy - gorgeous birds. I would like to discover a nest of their eggs sometime...

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

I do raise 3 subspecies of wild turkeys, and yours does appear to be one. Like you said, they have a much slimmer build than bronze or any domestic for that matter. The leg and wing bones in wilds are much thinner and really a totally different build. Catch up one of each and feel them out and you'll see what I mean. A domestic is built like a tank, , thick stout bones, where the wilds are much more aerodynamic.

Due to the wet tail, I cant tell for sure what subspecies, it's eastern or rio for sure, looks like a mix of the two to be honest.
Usually easterns have chocolate tips and rios have rusty to buff tips, this one looks in the middle, thus the possible cross.

 

[ColbyNTX]

I did take the pic right after a little rain shower. I will try to get a dry pic in strut.

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

That'll help me tell which of if a cross a lot better

 

[Taylor]

yep, he's a wild, bronze looks sorta like him, but bronze have white tips on the end of their tail feathers, that one has brown tips, thats the only way i have been able to tell the wilds apart

 

[crj]

I don't know but they sure are pretty.

 

[linda_zeagler31002]

nah, them there turkey are to big to be wild, they look like the standard bronze possible some chocolate mix and the one behind him looks like the broadbreasted bronze, look at mine on my website, I edited this, because I got my turkey hunting husband up to come look, and he said I could be wrong because every state has different wild turkeys and colors, we have the Eastern Wild Turkey here, and ours are small, but Fla. Ocelao they are small, but nevertheless we fill it is not wild because it is too fat and healty, looks like someone has took extra care of it, and usually the wild turkeys don't get that big.

 

[ColbyNTX]

Quote:
I dressed one of the brothers of these turkeys in the back ground for Thanksgiving and he was 14.6lbs dressed at 9 months, not a BBB. I do feed my birds pretty well so they would be fatter than a wild turkey and they don't have to travel very far for food, water, cover ect.