This was discussed in an earlier thread on aging turkeys. The best way I've found to determine if a gobbler is 2 yrs old, or 3 or older is by looking at the end of the beard. A 2 yr will have a lot of amber tips in the beard, while an older gobbler will be black in the ends. Here are a couple of pics:



The first one weighed 19-12 and had 15/16 spurs. He certainly could have been 2 by those stats, but the black ends say he is at least 3.

The second one weighed 21-6 and had 5/8 spurs. His spurs left little doubt he was just 2, but the amber is very obvious. This is a good example of how weight tells you nothing about his age.

I hope this is of help to some as you age your gobbler. My hat is off to those who can spot those PBTs before shooting them. I gotta kill him to figure out his age.

Good job pcp, if you hold them up to the sunlight the amber really shows.

Thanks!!

I've been turkey hunting a long time and I've never heard of this. What causes the amber and what makes it change to black on older birds? Or does it just wear off?

Thanks for the info.

Looks like the second picture was getting in butt kick (or actually beard kicked)and parted like Sonny Bono by the first picture:)

I've heard the answer to that, but I have forgotten. A Jake will have the amber too. Maybe AU Coonhunter will chime in.

I talked with a guy from MO and he told me it didn't work with their turkeys due to beards freezing in cold weather. I've never examined an AL turkey where it didn't seem to work.

I think the theory would be similar to new growth, or in this case, fast growing beard shows tips of amber as newer growth. That's why it's an indicator of a 2 year old, cause his beard just grew more rapidly than it ever will again (between his jake year and age 2). Then the new growth levels off, the tips wear off, the amber mostly goes away.

Beards grow about 5" per year, doesn't matter about age.. For whatever reason, as the beard first grows out of the sheath as a jake there isn't as much melanin put into it. My theory is that it is more useful in feather production at that point. The lack of melanin causes the amber tint, and as more melanin is added to beard growth as the turkey gets older it turns the nice shiny black color. Since they grow 5ish" a year, a 2 year old will still have some amber left in his tips.

Good post PCP. I've heard that the amber tips simply break off as the beard continues to grow and get longer. I can believe the bit about it not working in northern climates. The first Merriam I shot in South Dakota had a beard about the length of a jake beard of an Alabama bird. The morning after I shot that bird in the Black Hills, we got about 6 inches of snow. I imagine lots of northern birds have short beards due to dragging them through the snow.

I've found that to be absolutely true.

I thought they all had orange tipped beards!

Guess I only kill 2 year olds! Lol!

I would like to hear your thoughts on the bird I killed this morning. He has the amber tips like shown in the early pic but about half way up ( or down depending on how you look at it ) his beard the is a amber band about a half inch wide. So what does that tell you about his age? He had a 10 1/8" in beard and weighed 21.5#.

The amber stripe in the middle is "beard rot". It is a melanin deficiency that causes that section to not have melanin. It is more brittle and usually breaks off, leaving the small stub of a beard. You occasionally see them like you described that did not break off.

Pcp I'm with you got to kill em to figure there age!
cool info

I thought it might be a melanin deficiency that caused the middle stripe. But do you think that could have also caused the amber in the tips of his beard or do you think that the
amber tips means he is a two year old?

2 yr old more than likely. What kind of spurs did he have?

I've killed several with beard rot, but I've only killed one like you just described. That's a rare bird; be proud of him.

Here is a pic I just made of mine; tag says I killed him in 2003.

Mine was not as defined as the one you killed.
He had 1 3/8" spurs.

I think you can rule out him being a 2 yr old if he had spurs like that. It's interesting that he was an older turkey and the beard never did break at the stripe. The turkeys I've killed with beard rot were all 2 yr olds, but I've seen some posted here that were older. I've wondered if the beard will ever grow again if the beard breaks off from beard rot. Maybe AU Coonhunter will check back in. Looks like our other biologists have deserted us.

He was definitely not 2 with 1 3/8" spurs. I don't remember reading anything about them growing back, but they grow from the root so they should grow back normally over time as long as sufficient melanin is supplied back.

Congrats on a great bird.