Beard growth

[marbleeye2]

So how fast do turkey beards grow? I shot what turned out to be a jake with a 5" beard. Since he never displayed, I couldn't tell from the tail feathers that he was a young bird.

I had other jakes with puny beards by me, but thought perhaps since this one had a longer beard that he was a "tweener." At what age do they cross the line from being a jake, and about how long will the beard be when they do?

[brittman]

Where we hunt the beards on 2 year olds range from about 8 inches to 9 inches in length. 3 year old birds are only 9 to 10 inches but the beards are thicker and the strands are wirey and blacker in color.

The jakes that I see look like 2" to 4".

We hunt deeper woods north of the cities. Beards are really nice, but the birds are not as heavy as the birds living in southern MN along the corn fields.