Sexing Young Bourbon Red

[texansport]

Unfortunately we lost 2 of our 5 turkeys to a chicken snake yesterday, now I'm a little concerned we won't end up with a Tom. I have read every relevant post I can find!

The two pictures are of the turkey I think could still potentially be a male. I know it is hard to tell, but I am not very patient He/She is only 25 days old but a total sweetheart (falling asleep on my hand).

Any guesses? Male/Female?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

No pictures, generally you need to wait until they are 3-4 months to tell for sure. When younger the toms tend to be a bit more hefty than the hens who generally are lighter in weight and bulk, but it's not full proof, and you can only tell the difference if you have both sexes.

 

[texansport]

No pictures, generally you need to wait until they are 3-4 months to tell for sure. When younger the toms tend to be a bit more hefty than the hens who generally are lighter in weight and bulk, but it's not full proof, and you can only tell the difference if you have both sexes.

Took me a second to figure out images, it was my first post but they should be up. I know it's probably a 50/50 guess at this point.

I'll get decent pictures of the other 2 tonight.

 

[R2elk]

You need to be patient. I have poults that are 6 weeks old and I am not ready to definitely declare the sex on any more than a couple of them. I have one little tom who does a major strutting job and a few hens who do the tail fan. With Bourbon Reds, once they get their adult feathers, the hens will have a light color on the lower edge of their breast feathers while the toms will have dark colored lower edges on their breast feathers.

When surprised or scared, hens will fan their tail parallel to the ground. It is an inborn instinct to provide protective cover for poults. I have never seen a tom do the tail fan but I am seeing a number of my poults doing it so am assuming that they are female.