Picking a turkey help!

[rebecca100]

So tomorrow morning I'm going to go look at some turkeys I found on CL. They're $20 each, and about 7 months old. The guy said they were all hens. Well at that age if I remember right they ALL look like hens, so, anyway, I need some pointers to help make sure the one I pick is actually a hen! He kept calling these Spanish bronze. Im not real sure that is a breed unless he's meaning that's the cross they are? Anyway I need a turkey person to chime in!

 

[Wannabefree]

Black Spanish and either Heritage Bronze or Broad Breasted Bronze would be the mix. If they are mixed BBB(Broad Breasted Bronze) they are meat birds and won't be capable of reproduction if they took that gene. If they are massive I'd pass on them unless you plan on slaughtering now.

To tell the male from female, pay close CLOSE attention to the neck and snood(dangly thing hanging above the beak). Usually NOT always the males will have larger snoods and larger redder neck nodes(?) and may or may not strut a bit. That age is VERY hard to tell!! Like most fowl the males legs will generally be thicker as well, and they should be visibly larger, even at that age in a mixed flock of young birds.

Good luck, that's the only subtle ways I know to attempt to tell gender at that age, but really look at the chests, you can't raise BBB meat birds. They're the Cornish Rock of the turkey world.

 

[rebecca100]

Thanks WBF! Thats kinda what I was thinking on breed. The leg thing is the only way I know to even guess on sex. My last hen was a BBB. Poor thing laid good but she ended up being just a pet. What I'm really wondering now is if he knows the difference between a hen and a jake or is trying to take advantage of me by telling me they were all hens because he knew that was what I was looking for and didn't think I would know the difference? I mean if I feel that he was deliberately trying to take advantage of me I don't want to deal with him. Oh well I don't know.

 

[TanksHill]

I'm pretty sure by 7 months the turkey should have a snood and a wattle. Also hens chirp where as the toms should be gobble-ing.

Good luck,
g

 

[rebecca100]

Okay, I just read that male bronze turkeys will have a black edging to their breast feathers and females will have white edges. I made ds go out and catch his male turkey just to make sure.

 

[Wannabefree]

I have a male Heritage Standard Bronze that's not gobbling yet :/ He's definately a he, but not very vocal. I didn't know that about the feathers

 

[rebecca100]

Well I fulfilled the promise to ds to get him a female turkey. The one I got did have the lighter edging to the feathers and was clucking so I know it was a hen. After I got there he said he thought they were all hens left because he had butchered all the Jakey looking ones. I felt a lot better about that. The first time I ever bought turkeys a few years ago I got what I was told were two hens that both turned out to be males so I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. The kids had fun and got to see emus for the first time! One good thing is that I can actually free range the turkeys since they can't go through the fence like the chickens and get in the neighbors yard and they can patrol for bugs and such. I'll clip their wings and that should keep them from going over the fence I hope! Our Tom has been patrolling loose all winter with no problems and I hope the hen will be the same.