sexing

[manybirds]

what age can u sex (to old to vent sex) turkey's??

 

[Lagerdogger]

It depends on the breeding and the individual birds. Some colors are sex linked (like Narragansett), and if you have a cross of a bird with narragansett genes and one without (Standard Bronze X Narragansett Toms or Bourbon Reds X Royal Palm Toms), you can sex the poults at about 3 weeks when the Narragansett starts showing.

But I assume you mean if you have a pile of one variety, how long until you can sort them out. Some of them will be obvious at six weeks, and some will not be obvious until 14 weeks. And some of the ones that were obvious at 6 weeks will turn out to be obviously wrong at 12 weeks. Toms tend to have bigger, thicker feet and larger bodies. Some colors have slight differences in feathers. Bourbon red hens eventually get while edges while toms eventually get black edges, but younger toms 6 to 8 weeks, can have white edges before they turn black. Standard bronze hens will eventually get white edges in breast feathers, but this can take a while too. Royal palm hens often appear white and gray rather than white and black. Guessing sexes is fun, but until I see the snood extend (around 10-12 weeks), or some of the other definitive colorings, I won't guarantee anything. By 14 weeks, there should be no more mysteries....but watch out anyways

 

[manybirds]

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i have two lavender or lavender crosses and one royal palm or royal palm cross. i'll have to check how old. i'm pretty sure one of the lavenders is a tom the other a hen but i'm not sure about the royal palm. the lavender (possibly) jake dances and struts (haha he's got all but three tail feathers). i think the royal palm might have too but i can't remember. does this mean anything?

 

[Jocasta]

Both genders will strutt, doesn't mean a lot.

I posted about this a few days ago - most people will tell you that you can't reliably sex them until 12 weeks at the earliest, but someone on here said that there's a difference in the head shape - if you look down onto the top of their heads, females will appear more triangular whereas males will appear more square. It's an obvious difference although I think you'd need both genders there for it to be obvious if that makes sense. I figured I'd give it a bash and as I was keeping my turkeys for meat, wanted to keep all boys so out of my 12 turkeys, I picked the four with the squarest heads. At 14 weeks old, they are all very much boys! May have been a huge coincidence but I'm inclined to believe there's something in it!

 

[manybirds]

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hhhhmmmmmm. sounds interesting but don't u think out of 12 there would be more toms? maybe it works most of the time but not all

 

[Jocasta]

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hhhhmmmmmm. sounds interesting but don't u think out of 12 there would be more toms? maybe it works most of the time but not all

I think you're missing the point. I didn't say that they were the ONLY ones with square heads, just that I chose the ones with the most obviously square heads. The point being that there's almost certainly something in it as the odds of me just choosing four males out of nothing but luck are pretty slim. This method "worked" for me. There was one turkey amongst mine that I couldn't quite make my mind up about, obviously that wasn't one of the ones I kept. I'm not saying that this technique is 100% accurate 100% of the time, but it does work.

 

[manybirds]

Quote:
hhhhmmmmmm. sounds interesting but don't u think out of 12 there would be more toms? maybe it works most of the time but not all

I think you're missing the point. I didn't say that they were the ONLY ones with square heads, just that I chose the ones with the most obviously square heads. The point being that there's almost certainly something in it as the odds of me just choosing four males out of nothing but luck are pretty slim. This method "worked" for me. There was one turkey amongst mine that I couldn't quite make my mind up about, obviously that wasn't one of the ones I kept. I'm not saying that this technique is 100% accurate 100% of the time, but it does work.

I understand. Why wouldn't u keep and butcher the females too though?

 

[Jocasta]

More meat on a Tom. Simple as that really.