Lilac Turkeys?

Lilacs are double slated so no black specks.
Red slates will have specks due to single slated.
I have found out through my experience that only the really pale birds will have no specks.
The redder ones will have specks.

Our 1 Lilac Baby.

To me with what I have been crossing the last few years to get lilacs looks more on the red slate side.
I found the lilacs to have less red in the head.

But what do I know.

These are what I' am calling Lilacs. Just a hint of red with the slate.
I found any more red at this age has the out come of Red Slates.
My Lilac project started by accidental cross breeding.
First came the Red Slates and with careful selection I toned the red down to just a faint hue change.
This is what I understand a Lilac to be.

retlaw said:

These are what I' am calling Lilacs. Just a hint of red with the slate.
I found any more red at this age has the out come of Red Slates.
My Lilac project started by accidental cross breeding.
First came the Red Slates and with careful selection I toned the red down to just a faint hue change.
This is what I understand a Lilac to be.

Click to expand...

You should join Kevin Porter's turkey color genetics group on Facebook and post this photo there. There may still be some other genes going on with these. My Lilac poults (from Porter stock) do not have any yellow on their face nor do the ones he pictures on his website. There are some breeders (not talking about you, retlaw) that call a whole array of genotypes "Lilac". Kevin has just narrowed it down to one specific genotype that breeds true.

I don't do facebook,
Privacy is more important to me.

If you check my thread I started last year called "My Lilac Experiment"
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/893188/my-lilac-experiment
you will see kevin responded to my thread.
My understand of what I have is from his comments.

retlaw said:

I don't do facebook,
Privacy is more important to me.

If you check my thread I started last year called "My Lilac Experiment"
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/893188/my-lilac-experiment
you will see kevin responded to my thread.
My understand of what I have is from his comments.

Click to expand...

Totally understand. I had read that thread before. Seems there was discussion that narragansett gene might be in there. So I took the liberty of posting your photo to the FB turkey color genetics group because I am still learning the genetics and want to know what's going on with the yellow on the face. Will report back what I learn

I' am ok with that.

The yellow in the face turns out to be a very light grey.
Like a Self blue.
But it's that hint of red in the self blue that to my understanding is a Lilac.

You need that double slate gene which eliminates black and splash from the Blue Slate side.
So to me that would be self blue tinted red. Red being bronze.

This is my first season with what I think is a Lilac tom.
The one I had before him last year which i thought was but turned out to be a Red Slate was replaced

This is just my understanding of this and I have no professional background with turkey genetics.

I will find out more this year from the other hatches of how true they are breeding but with my horrible success rate with hatching I will be luck enough to just get the birds I need.

retlaw said:

I' am ok with that.

The yellow in the face turns out to be a very light grey.
Like a Self blue.
But it's that hint of red in the self blue that to my understanding is a Lilac.

You need that double slate gene which eliminates black and splash from the Blue Slate side.
So to me that would be self blue tinted red. Red being bronze.

This is my first season with what I think is a Lilac tom.
The one I had before him last year which i thought was but turned out to be a Red Slate was replaced

This is just my understanding of this and I have no professional background with turkey genetics.

I will find out more this year from the other hatches of how true they are breeding but with my horrible success rate with hatching I will be luck enough to just get the birds I need.

Click to expand...

The face mask in a poult, be it light grey, white, or yellow, is an indication that the bird is Black based. Lilacs are Bronze based. Neither Lilac nor Red Slate have any red gene, it is just the bronze color bleeding through that gives the reddish color. Perhaps those poults are heterozygous black and bronze. They have to be carrying at least one black gene for them to have a face mask like that.

Turkeys have 3 base colors that are all found on the same allele on the gene: bronze, black-winged bronze, and black. When you get the double slate, that washes out any black on a black-based bird and you get Self Blue. There is no red tint on a Self Blue. They are just BBDD genetically, pure black with 2 slate genes.

On the Lilac, they are pure bronze, bbDD, with 2 slate genes. It is the bronze base that gives the reddish color bleed through. But they will not have a face mask as a poult since no black. Since they are homozygous for both bronze and slate, they are true breeding. If you look at the photos of Porter's website, you can see what these various varieties look like. I find his website very helpful and refer to it often. He also has a page on basic turkey color genetics.

My first tom was an all black blue slate.
And I think he was the one that had the bronze cross in him.
All black with one bronze feather.
He was very handsome but died of blackhead.
How that effects the gene pool I have no idea.