Carp,
Then by definition you killed a Tom with short spurs & beard
. The bird was probably an early hatch and was just going on 2 years old...but nonetheless, if his fan was full he was a tom...
I killed a tom a few years ago with a 11.5 inch beard and 9/16 spurs... Diversely, one of my brother's coworkers back in NY shot a jake with an 8 inch beard...
Because of the variability of beard growth and spur length, the fan is used to decipher between "jake" and "tom"...once a tom has a full fan, he does not regress into the jake fan shape.
Sounds like you may have a bit of brittle beard or ice-snap frozen beards. You're in MI...I would see that occassionally in NY.
Talk to BT, I'm sure he sees quite a few broken beards up there in Canuck land...