What age can bronze turkeys be sexed by the color of the feathers ?

[RAREROO]

hi. I bought 5 turkey poults at an auction this weekend and I'm assuming that they're bronze and around 3 weeks old all 5 of them have white feather tips and I have heard that bronze based females hae white feather tips and males have black but I was wondering if they can be sexed this early or do they all start as white tips the males turn black ?

Thanks

 

[jvgrist]

hi. I bought 5 turkey poults at an auction this weekend and I'm assuming that they're bronze and around 3 weeks old all 5 of them have white feather tips and I have heard that bronze based females hae white feather tips and males have black but I was wondering if they can be sexed this early or do they all start as white tips the males turn black ?
Thanks

You're not going to be able to sex them by feather colour. You'll have to wait till they are something like 18 weeks to know for certain. I have 6 that are 16 weeks and I just started to hear gobbling. I'm confident 2 are male as they have huge waddles and their snoods are growing. I'm unsure about one though as it is changing its skin colour on the head when he gets excited but the caruncles ( weird knobbly bits of skin on the neck ) are not as pronounced as the other two. So I'm _still_ guessing at 16 weeks basically (=

 

[Lagerdogger]

I would have to disagree, or perhaps clarify. You will be able to sex them by feather color eventually, but by that time there will be other characteristics that are just as easy, such as the larger snood and caruncles, larger feet and legs, and the gobbling, of course. You should be able to separate most birds by 10 weeks, but a few will always throw you. The longer you wait, the more certain you will be. I would guess that you can probably get 90 to 95 percent by 10 to 12 weeks old.

You can't tell sex from the juvenile feathers. Very young males will also have a faint white or tan trim. As they get older, that will go away in the males and become more pronounced in the females.

 

[A.T. Hagan]

I would have to disagree, or perhaps clarify.  You will be able to sex them by feather color eventually, but by that time there will be other characteristics that are just as easy, such as the larger snood and caruncles, larger feet and legs, and the gobbling, of course.  You should be able to separate most birds by 10 weeks, but a few will always throw you.  The longer you wait, the more certain you will be.  I would guess that you can probably get 90 to 95 percent by 10 to 12 weeks old.

You can't tell sex from the juvenile feathers.  Very young males will also have a faint white or tan trim.  As they get older, that will go away in the males and become more pronounced in the females.

This is my experience. By the time you can tell for sure from the feather color you can also tell from leg thickness, snoods, head feathering and so on. I tell my customers that I can begin to tell in the ten to twelve week range (some are obvious) but won't guarantee it before sixteen weeks.

Heck, I've got one that is a couple of days past fifteen weeks old right now and I'm still not sure! Of course it's also the smallest of them all and ought to be a hen, but it's losing head feathering the way the for-sure toms are so...

 

[jvgrist]

I would have to disagree, or perhaps clarify. You will be able to sex them by feather color eventually, but by that time there will be other characteristics that are just as easy, such as the larger snood and caruncles, larger feet and legs, and the gobbling, of course. You should be able to separate most birds by 10 weeks, but a few will always throw you. The longer you wait, the more certain you will be. I would guess that you can probably get 90 to 95 percent by 10 to 12 weeks old.

You can't tell sex from the juvenile feathers. Very young males will also have a faint white or tan trim. As they get older, that will go away in the males and become more pronounced in the females.

That's good advice! I'm new to turkeys myself. This is the first year I got some males as so far all I've had were females from auctions. I've got males that are light and dark in feathers so for a novice it's probably going to be tough to say for certain until you see the other signs too. takes us newbies longer to put all the pieces together (=