Baby Royal Palm strutting photos (just three weeks old)

[ChickDancer]

This little poult decided my sister's cat was a threat. The cat isn't. He hasn't hurt a single chick since I started raising chickens - bantams included. He was in the area chasing me for attention. That's all he wanted. He showed up on my sister's door step 12 years ago, already full grown. So no one really knows how old he is. But he's old enough to be like Garfield - it requires too much of his energy to chase this little poult around, when there's a perfectly good bowl of food right around the corner.

But this jake wasn't having it. His girl went and cowered down and hid for the most part, while he began to strut around in the presence of the cat.

First, a photo of what he normally looks like. Feathers all smooth, head up, wings up, carrying himself like a normal chick.



And then the strut. Many of these photos are blurry, and I apologize for that. Clearly, he's not about to sit still when he's strutting for the cat, so I kinda had to "chase" him with the camera. But it's enough to see what he's trying to do!












(Here he is with his girl in the background.)


Just three weeks old, and he's trying to tell that cat who's boss. LOL! Good luck with that little guy!

 

[SAHchickenmom]

That's adorable! I just got some 4 week old Royal Palm poults and have been watching them trying to figure out their sex but haven't seen anything like this! Lol. These are my first turkeys so I really don't have a clue!

 

[ChickDancer]

Well, these are my first turkeys too. I bought four eggs from someone here on BYC in the trade forums, and got six. But four of them either didn't develop, or died late. These were the two remaining, and ended up being male and female.

As for determining the sex, somehow I knew from the moment they started to grow feathers in. Of course, I don't believe color is a determining factor for royal palm poults, but somehow I knew. I knew the solid white one was going to be female, and the one already showing black would be male.

THEN I got on here and started reading a thread of people trying to figure out the gender of their poults. I read about jakes losing their neck and head feathers (down, actually) sooner than hens. I looked at mine, and they fit that description. Then I read about slight size differences. Mine matched that too. Then I read about the early strutting in males. And wouldn't you know... here it is, lol! NEVER thought I would see it at three WEEKS, but I guess a cat is a big enough threat for it.

So needless to say, I'm convinced now! Maybe you should get an old, calm, lazy cat around your poults and see who tries to strut?

 

[SAHchickenmom]

No cats here lol. I didn't get to watch them from the day they hatched either. They all have the same amount of black on them, I hope they are not all boys!

 

[SilksterTN]

Aww thats just adorable. Honestly I would have never imagined how friendly and curious and brave turkeys are. My 8 week olds follow me around like little dogs, always the first to arrive on the scene to "help". They stare down the dogs in the adjacent yard and one pecked the collie who got too close and scared the bejebus out of him. I put my new turkey poults into a pen inside the enclosure yesterday and the itty bitty one displayed his feathers and strutted around as if to tell the older turkey he was gonna have NONE Of it. LOL I am hoping the one in my avatar pic is female, but time will tell

 

[SAHchickenmom]

I know what you mean, I had one fly at me this morning to use me as a perch. I ended up catching him/her! Lol. It was adorable. Everytime they see me they start chirping like crazy, my chicks just run away.

 

[Pumkinface2002]

Look at him go! So adorable...

 

[TattooedMama]

I love these photos because they help me know what to look for! I haven't caught any of my poults doing this yet. I'm hoping to get them outside soon and out of the brooder and then maybe they will be more playful.

 

[WellDunnFarms]

Haha! It's amazing he's fluffing up so much at such a young age! I can't wait to see what my bbb's are!

 

[Hummingbird Hollow]

I love the little baby-strut. When my royal palms were little and started strutting, it was like it took tremendous effort and they couldn't maintain if for very long. It looked like someone taking a big breath and then posing like a body builder, trembling with the effort to flex all those muscles and then like a balloon deflating, they'd relax back to normal. However, I had three of my four that would strut on a regular basis, although two had the big heads and wattles of a tom and two had the smaller, cleaner heads of hens. I even had all four strutting on several occasions. I was sort of confused, but on butchering, it was clear that I had two toms and two hens, even though three of them strutted. Here is a photo of them when they were around 20 weeks.The one on the right and the one in front are the two toms, and the smaller one in the center is the hen.
Here is hen #1 struting for the camera while hen #2 photo-bombs.
You can see how different the heads of the Royal Palm toms are. When they strut, their faces turn blue and their wattles turn bright red. The hens, even when strutting don't have as much to show.