Wildlife - Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo)
Age and Sex Determination
Age - Determined by outer wing feather and tail feather
Wing Feathers - Adult Rounded and barred with white almost to the extreme tip. |
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Wing Feather - Immature Pointed and plain gray tip with lack of definite barring. |
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Tail Feathers
Tail Feather - Adult Even contour of spread tail feathers. |
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Tail Feather - Immature Irregular contour. |
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Sex - Determined by Breast feather coloration
Breast feather - Male Black tipped |
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Breast feather - Female Brown or bronze tipped |
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Sex - Determined by foot length and presence of spur
All Males foot length Approximately 6 inches |
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All Females foot length Approximately 4 1/2 inches pronounced spur is not found on females |
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Beards - Measure from the base to the longest point
Beard - Immature Less than 6 inches |
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Beard - Adult 6 inches or longer |
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Spurs
Spurs - Immature Male Less than 1/2 inch |
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Spurs - Adult Male 1/2 inch or longer |
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The Eastern Wild Turkey Age and Sex Determination information above is provided in the Adobe® Acrobat® (PDF) format. Adobe® Reader® is required to open this file and is available as a free download from the Adobe® Web site.
