how can you tell wild turkeys apart from bronze?

[syble]

bronze have a shine to them, not sure what the difference is but its almost the type of shine

 

[Rustywreck]

For the last week or so I've had a wild turkey hen visiting my flock of bronze (mostly male). When they are together the difference is clear. My bronze are more black than the wild turkey. Where the tips of the bronze turkeys feathers are white, the wild turkey is more brown.
Size is perhaps the most notable difference: the wild turkey is much smaller.
I will try to get a picture of them together.
Oh, the one other difference is that the wild turkey is much more athletic than my plump bronze. When the boys try to get frisky with her she can run circles around them: she is quick and graceful, they are slow and lumbering.

 

[Frosty]

Here is a link to the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF). If you scroll down, there are links describing the various subspecies of turkeys. http://www.nwtf.org/for_hunters/all_about_turkeys.html

 

[Rustywreck]

here are a couple pictures of an eastern wild turkey with a bronze

 

[Martin farm]

the wild easterns will have an irredesence to them that a bronze will never get

The bronze has the irredesence to them that the eastern wild will never have. That's why it's called a bronze, the bronze was created by crossing some type of domestic turkey from Europe and the eastern wild turkey in the 18th century and was first named Point Judith Bronze in 1830 when a strain of this breed developed in Rhode Island. It was later simplified to the bronze turkey, and that's what we have today.

 

[TV]

The bronze has the irredesence to them that the eastern wild will never have. That's why it's called a bronze, the bronze was created by crossing some type of domestic turkey from Europe and the eastern wild turkey in the 18th century and was first named Point Judith Bronze in 1830 when a strain of this breed developed in Rhode Island. It was later simplified to the bronze turkey, and that's what we have today.

I don't know what wild turkeys you've been looking at but the wild have an iridescence (shine) that no domestic turkey will ever achieve. In bright sunlight, the wild turkey colors just pop, like a bronze cast rainbow. The domestic bronze tend to be much darker with more muted coloration. It is thought that the domestic turkey is a descendant of a subspecies of the eastern turkey which lived in Mexico but no longer exists. The domestic bronze is basically a domesticated eastern wild turkey.

 

[Kitty86]

So What is my tom? As i was told he was a wild turkey when i got him.. But ive been calling him a bronze instead of a wild turkey because i thought the bronze was the shinny.. Both pics are of the same tom Just the bottom one is on a cloudy day..

 

[Lagerdogger]

The bronze and the eastern wilds are both irridescent, (I can never spell that word), and in the right light, bronzes have fantastic green and orange iridesence. (how do you spell that!). But wilds are many times more brilliant in most lights.

The tom submitted by Kitty86 is a domesic bronze, not a wild. The top picture show some of those shiny colors, while the bottom shows very characteristic tail colors of a standard bronze. (Broad-breasted bronze are the same colors as standard bronze).

 

[hessclan6]

I've wondered this same thing (Eastern wild vs Bronze) with our turkeys. We bought a batch of poults from someone licensed to sell Eastern Wilds however he gets his poults from auction and often has dozens of poults at once. Half of our poults grew to have white on the tip of the tail coverts and the terminal band on the tail while half grew to have brown. My husband I both think we may have gotten a mixed batch.