Is my turkey male of female? & Why ratty tail feathers?

[jsin]

Is this turkey male or female?


Look at these ratty tail feathers? What is wrong here?

 

[sourland]

It looks like a hen, and she is quite possibly busting her tail feathers against the chain link as she paces and turns in your pen.

 

[bucket04]

Do you happen to have a closer up/clearer picture of the head? The snood looks pretty large to me, how old is the bird?

 

[jsin]

How is this picture? It is probably between 3 1/2 and 4 months old.

 

[poultrypalacewhidbey]

Close up picture is kinda blurry but it looks like there are almost no feathers on the head/neck indicating it is a male. At that age there should be a spur bump developing on the legs as well. Also the large dewlap (skin under chin) indicates male, also as mentioned above the snood is large. Also notice the coloration of the head skin. Males have deeper coloring and the head color changes as with their mood, excited, scared, resting etc. The broken tailfeathers are common with turkeys as they brush up against the sides of their pen. It is a real problem when showing turkeys as they tend to rub against the pen walls even when given large amounts of space and low numbers of birds per cage. Chain link does a bit more damage to feathers than wood walled pens. It is nothing to be concerned about unless you are planning on harvesting feathers to sell or showing your bird.

 

[chicken pickin]

I think he looks like a male. He has the same head as all my males(same snood, caruncles and redness).

 

[frank53061]

Chicken Picken I think is right but of course it would help unless I missed it what age the bird is also.
My Red Bourbons are a little over 6 months now and yesterday I found a Beard on one of my Toms just 2 to 3 inches long but was so proud my Turkeys are growing so fast now.

 

[20736]

Yep, it's a boy!

 

[PekinBantam]

It's a tom