Ask Dr. Tom: The Jake Transition

Question: When is a jake not a jake? At what point is he considered a longbeard? ― Patrick Shannessy, via email.

Answer: Young wild turkeys develop quickly from hatching through their first summer and fall. That speedy growth and maturation places a heavy demand on nutrition. Most of their protein needs are met by consumption of insects. Protein acquired from insects is supplemented by nitrogen-rich plant materials and vitamins contained in various vegetation they consume. Both young gobblers and hens go through four different plumages and three molts from hatching to their first winter, by continuously molting and replacing feathers. At hatching, poults are covered with a fine down that has little value for thermoregulation, and they lack adequate primary wing feathers for flight capability until they are 10 to 14 days old. The yellowish and brown down is shed quickly, replaced by the first feathers. The first body feathers to develop consist of various shades of brown making the poults look more like grouse or pheasants with longer necks. This second stage is known as the juvenal plumage. At this point their contour (body) feathers are round-tipped, and the wing feathers are brown.

Young turkeys attain their first adult-type feathers in the first basic plumage, also called the post-juvenal plumage. Emerging adult-looking feathers are mixed with juvenal feathers. This occurs at about three months of age. Molting continues from four months of age into the late fall when young turkeys acquire their alternate (first winter) plumage. That is the plumage jakes exhibit in their first spring after hatching. They are recognizable by the longer central retrices (major tail feathers), a lack of barring on the ninth and tenth primary wing feathers and beards ranging from 2 to 5 inches or so in length. That fall and into the next spring, a jakes’ spurs are simple buttons or blunted spurs less than a half inch in length. In the Osceola subspecies, many jakes retain only juvenal primary number 10. The other eight or nine primaries show barring all the way to the tip in all subspecies and are more rounded at the tip than juvenal primaries.

By late spring, nearly a year after hatching, a jake is still a jake and a jenny, or young hen, is still a jenny. At that point in time another molt begins. Adult turkeys also begin a complete molt at that time of year. By mid to late fall, the young turkey’s second fall, both sexes have acquired adult plumage including adult contour feathers, wing and tail covert feathers, retrices, primary and secondary wing feathers. Based on plumage, they are no longer juveniles. So, a jake is no longer a jake when the bird acquires its adult plumage at about 17-18 months of age. By that time the maturing jake has reached adult weight, and both the beard and spurs are noticeably developed. Next spring, that jake will be one of the vocal 2-year-old birds.