When and how can you tell the gender of Turkeys?

[Cloverr39]

Have a family member that I'm visiting this week and they just had a mother turkey hatch 8 turkey chicks. They're probably no older than a week. They all look the same to me. I don't know what breed they are, but they're most likely mutts or mixes. The dad is completely white and mom is white with dark spots. I'm only familiar with sexing chickens like laying breeds and silkies.

At what age is it possible to sex turkey chicks and what traits to look for? I really want to help out their owners with this. They don't know much about sexing chickens/turkeys.

Also how should they be kept? I heard turkey chicks are very fragile and die easily. Earlier this year the same mother turkey lost all her chicks in a week or 2. They were walking freely around the fenced area all day.
They (current chicks) are cept inside right now and let out under supervision when it's dry outside. Any other precautions that's should be taken?

 

[R2elk]

The breed is Turkey. All domestic turkeys are the breed Turkey. They are separated into varieties. Young turkeys are poults.

The poults should be fed a high protein turkey or gamebird starter. If the hen is being allowed to raise them, I recommend keeping her and the poults out of the general population for at least the first 2 weeks. There is just too much that can go wrong when they are in the general population.

Poults can start to be sexed at 3 months old and for sure by the time they are 6 months old.

 

[Cloverr39]

The breed is Turkey. All domestic turkeys are the breed Turkey. They are separated into varieties. Young turkeys are poults.

The poults should be fed a high protein turkey or gamebird starter. If the hen is being allowed to raise them, I recommend keeping her and the poults out of the general population for at least the first 2 weeks. There is just too much that can go wrong when they are in the general population.

Poults can start to be sexed at 3 months old and for sure by the time they are 6 months old.

Thank you. She is living in a separate room away from everyone else at the moment. When they do reach 3 months old, what are the signs that one is male or female? Chickens get big red combs and special feathers, but what about Turkeys?

 

[R2elk]

Thank you. She is living in a separate room away from everyone else at the moment. When they do reach 3 months old, what are the signs that one is male or female? Chickens get big red combs and special feathers, but what about Turkeys?

Males will have bigger wattles and caruncles. The male snood will expand and be able to hang well below the end of his beak. A tom's snood will contract into a cone shape while a hen's will return to th3 normal horizontal J shape.

Snood development can be delayed in some varieties.

Tom's will develop a bald head with only a few hairs on it while a hen's head will have a "mohawk" running up the back of their neck and on top of the head. This "mohawk" can be pronounced or very thin.

At 2 months old, both sexes will still have the "mohawk".

Toms will be bigger with heavier legs.

 

[FloorCandy]

I have 3 poults, 3 weeks old, the ones I suspected were males started chest bumping each other in the first week, by week 3 the males are displaying and strutting, often, and they are noticeably larger than the female. I think snood size and development are different depending on the variety, but my males have much larger snoods (just lumps still), and had larger snoods at hatch, the one I’m pretty certain is female had a barely visible snood at hatch. Ours are in the living room, so we observe them a lot, I know close monitoring of behavior is difficult in a large outdoor group, but in a couple weeks you’ll probably be able to get an idea who’s male by watching for them to raise and fan their tails, drop wings to sides, and strut.

I’ve raised quail for a while, but turkey chicks are so sensitive, they’re right to be worried. I would keep them inside and separate as long as possible. I had one that fell over when I was cleaning the brooder on the fifth day, it couldn’t get up and got scared and literally gave up, in like a total of 5 seconds, I had to grab it up and rub it and hold it to the heat, it was vomiting water, and was like seconds from death, because it fell over and got scared.