Steve of S and S Poultry... ??? for you please.

[jossanne]

I'm still trying to figure out my bronze turkeys that I just got last week. The guy that I got them from thinks he got them in March. I usually think I have 4 males and no females, but only one of them has strutted in front of anyone, and he's much larger than the other three. So I went looking for pics of heritage bronze turkey hens tonight, and Google took me to your website. So is the bronze turkey on the bottom of your turkey page a male or a female? Mine look like that, but I haven't gotten a good-enough picture to show yet.

Thanks!

 

[jossanne]

Here's some I got tonight. When I take pictures in the dark, they all look really red. When I take pictures in the sunlight, my camera lets in too much light and their heads look all white. FRUSTRATING!

Here's a daylight photo or two:

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
Yes the one on the bottom are hens.

Steve

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Looks to me like you have 1 tom - 1st pic on the left, 3rd pic in the front, the other 3 are hens. You have a perfect mix.

Steve

 

[Intheswamp]

Quote:
Though it might not help, you might try pointing your camera towards the northern sky (away from the sun) on a clear day. The blue northern sky approximates closely a gray-card used to manually set exposure in photography. This will only work if your camera allows you to "lock in" exposure settings by pressing the shutter button down partially, move the lense to the subject, and then finish pressing the shutter button. You could also try "locking in" exposure settings from a surface that approximates a medium gray color.

Having a dark background will usually cause a near subject to be over-exposed whereas having a light background usually causes a near subject to be under-exposed. You might want to check and be sure you don't have an ISO setting turned up too high.

I'm no photography guru but hope it helps!
Ed

 

[Harp Turkey Ranch]

Yes I concur with Steve.

The ones that have the white tips on their breast feathers are the hens (females) and from your pics looks like you kave one male ?? But you want to go and look at all of them and see how many have white lacing ion the tips of their breast feathers then you'll know for sure as this is a 99.9% accurate way of telling on the Bronze and bourbon reds.

 

[jossanne]

Thanks Steve, and everyone else. I do have 3 with white-laced breast feathers - the smaller 3 of my bronzes. The large one doesn't have them. I really was hoping that's what I had! Now I just have to decide which of the hens I like best, so we can butcher a couple for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and have a pair for breeding next spring. Hopefully we'll end up with quite a few babies next summer.

As far as my camera is concerned, intheswamp, thanks for the pointers. I'm afraid they won't help, though, darn it. My little camera has no ISO settings, and the daylight pictures that I posted were all taken facing north. I'm afraid my camera is just getting old. It has been dropped once or twice, and that didn't help either. I've had it for almost 6 years, and it's only 3.1 megapixels. I NEED a new one!

 

[Harp Turkey Ranch]

You should keep at least two hens to one tom !!

 

[Boggy Bottom Bantams]

yep it's simple on the bronze and wilds.
If the breast feathers are laced in buff, they are hens, if they are all black toms. I only noticed 1 hen in the pics, but couldnt see the breast feathers very well.
I keep 1 tom to every 3-4 hens, so if the 3 are laced you are sitting pretty!