Fun fact: Before your favorite fashion influencer donned a snood scarf, they were introduced as a stylish alternative to hairnets during World War II when women began entering the workforce. Cue the snood, a type of scarf you've likely seen during your late-night Instagram scrolls that are both practical and easy to style, even for the novice fashionista. But from infinity to blanket scarves, it often seems like this fashion accessory requires its own user manual. Food that is dropped on the ground, becomes less recognizable, and rather suspicious looking.Scarves are a cold-weather staple. We have noticed, that unlike chickens, our turkeys prefer to be hand-fed produce. We’ll leave you with our turkeys enjoying being hand-fed some fresh apple. However, our turkeys as yet are far too young to display this feature. Occasionally a female will be observed with a beard.
Bearded birds though aren’t always necessarily males.
Immature males do not normally have an obvious beard. Male turkeys have a rather bristly mass of feathers that grow on the mid-line of the breast. Chickens, not even roosters, don’t have beards. Don’t ask me why, but our turkeys would prefer to boil their heads while sunbathing, than seek the shade we created for them in the pen.Īnother feature that is unique to turkeys is the beard.
#What is a turkey snood skin
This skin is highly vascular, and helps the turkeys to shed excess heat, along with panting, when they bake their unfeathered heads in the blazing sunshine. The wattle in turkeys is thought to serve a similar purpose as in chickens. As you can see here, even at this young age, our turkeys become quite flushed at the sight of a circling red tailed hawk. Their exact purpose is unknown, but when turkeys become excited, or agitated, the caruncles become flushed and bright red. Caruncles are fleshy nodular masses of tissue, concentrated at the base of the turkey’s neck.Īlthough females will show some of this nodular growth, it is most predominant in males. Like snoods, caruncles are a feature you will not see in chickens. Why do male lyre-birds have such ridiculously long tails anyway?Ĭaruncles…oh my. Like many sexually dimorphic characteristics of bird species, one always has to question why such selection occurs. Its purpose has been debated, however, studies have shown that wild turkey hens prefer to select long-snooded toms, and research suggests that such toms are healthier, and have a lower parasite load than their short-snooded counterparts. This fleshy mass can become quite large in males, up to 5 or 6 inches in length.
When mature, the Toms in the brood will have significant snoods (Photo: Ltshears - Image licenced under CCA 3.0)
What the heck is a snood anyway? A snood is the fleshy bump on the dorsal surface of the beak, just cranial to the eye. This in part is based on the rate of feather loss on their heads, behavior differences, and some sexually dimorphic differences such as snood size, and tarsal width.Īs I’ve already used the word snood, we should get down to some turkey terminology. Thus far, we expect we have three Jakes, and one Jenny (Tom and Hen are terms are reserved for mature birds that are close to a year in age). We’ve not had turkeys here at the farm before, but we have been watching for developmental cues as to who is who. For some pure breeds there may be genetic differences in coloration to hint as to the sex of each bird by this stage, but as our birds are crossed between Bourbon Red and Standard Bronze, or Bourbon Red and Royal Palm, we have no idea what to expect for coloration at this stage. It’s still a little early to be certain as to our ratio of juvenile males (Jakes) to juvenile females (Jennys).