Can you breed sex-linked turkeys?

[Mariella posey]

Can you?
Back in June I traded some ewe sheep for month old turkey poults, the lady said they were Spanish broad breasted and bourbon red cross. Well all of the males came out black. But all of the females came out a neat grey color. Are they sex-linked? Can you even breed sex-linked turkeys? As babies they had different colored down, the males were black and the hens were a smoky color.

 

[Mariella posey]

Bump

 

[R2elk]

Can you?
Back in June I traded some ewe sheep for month old turkey poults, the lady said they were Spanish broad breasted and bourbon red cross. Well all of the males came out black. But all of the females came out a neat grey color. Are they sex-linked? Can you even breed sex-linked turkeys? As babies they had different colored down, the males were black and the hens were a smoky color.

To the best of my knowledge, there is no such thing as a Spanish Broad Breasted.

There are crosses that will give sex linked hatches. There are also crosses that will give a 50% mix of two different colors at hatch but both varieties will have both sexes.

In order to create sex linked hatches, the father must be either a variety that has the Narragansett color gene or a variety that has the Brown gene. It will only work with those two genes as the father crossed with a variety that does not contain those genes.

Examples are a Narragansett tom crossed with a Bronze hen will produce Bronze males and Narragansett females.

A Royal Palm tom crossed with a Bourbon Red hen will produce Red Bronze males and Golden Narragansett hens.

A chocolate tom crossed with a Black hen will produce Black males and Chocolate females.

Non sex link example is a Blue Slate crossed with a Bourbon Red will create Rusty Blacks (males and females) and Rusty Slates (males and females)

I create Tri-Color Mottled Blacks and Tri-Color Mottled Slates by breeding a Sweetgrass tom to a Blue Slate hen. Both varieties come in males and females.