Courting behavior in a 5-6 week old poults! Really?

[mkcolls]

We had 1 Narr x RP poult hatch March 28 and 1 Narr x Narr poult hatch April 7 of this year. They are housed with chicks that hatched around the same time, from a few days before to 7 days after the second poult.

Today we saw both of them displaying courting behavior. They were standing as tall as they could, wing feathers dropped to the ground, dancing around the chick of their choice (of the moment) and making their courting sounds. We were astonished! It was not an isolated incident. They both did this several times with different chicks. Of course the chicks just looked at them and either squeaked away, or ignored them.

We got our first turkey poults early last summer and did not see that behavior until late fall.

I know it's spring but we weren't planning on moving the poults to the turkey coop for a couple of months. We have more control of their environment and safety in our brooder coop.

Do we have some super turkey boy hormones going on? Should we expect more than display?

 

[mkcolls]

Any of the turkey experts have any idea if this behavior is normal for this age? I have pictures of the 5 week old displaying. This was yesterday, Mother's Day.

The small black chick is the object of his attention.

While DH was taking pics I was telling him how beautiful he was. He did a 360 twice.

As you can see he still has baby fuzz on his head.

DH carried him over to the turkey pen to see what his reaction would be. DH said he wanted down when he saw his Papa, started drumming, and DH turned him away to calm him down. All the way back to the brooder coop he wanted down. When DH put him down in the brooder coop he flew up to the top roost and went to sleep. Man-child?

Can't wait to see what happens today.

 

[RhodeRunner]

I'm far from a turkey expert, but my boy hatched March 23rd, and he does the same thing. He actually started dropping his wings and strutting, around a month-old. From what I read, it seems like normal turkey behavior. I wouldn't worry about your jakes, just enjoy their showing off. LOL. I love to laugh at my little guy as he parades around the yard pretending to be tough.

 

[mr.mc.]

My blue sates, and bourbon reds are doing this at 5 week old too!!!

It's crazy!!!!