Sexing Turkeys

[Jocasta]

People are often asking on here if it's possible to sex young birds. Miss Turkey 4 (at least I think it was her lol) mentioned something about head shape and she got laughed at. I read it and skeptically figured "what the hell" and when I sold the majority of my poults at 2 weeks of age, I, wanting only toms, figured I'd give her advice a go (basically going by head shape - males being more square and hens being more triangular). This seemed to tally up pretty well with snood length too - another thing some folk will tell you to look out for. There were certainly one or two birds that weren't falling clearly into either category but there were also many that had a definite square or triangle thing going on up top.

Well, I'm not saying that it's 100% definitive but I can say that out of many birds, I have managed to keep four males! Just something to bear in mind if you are after a specific breed and have the pick of many.

 

[yinepu]

is that looking at the side of the head?.. or down from the top?

 

[Jocasta]

The top of their heads - from above looking down if that makes sense. The females are supposed to point more sharply towards the beak whereas the males will have a more square shape above the eyes. Certainly seems to have worked for me - although it could just be a huge coincidence, but I'm inclined to believe there's something in it!