Albino turkeys

[kaiserdr]

Over the weekend we had our usual group of 30+ wild turkeys ramble through, however, there were two new albino turkeys in the group. I Googled 'white turkeys' and was directed to your group.
I took a photo on my phone and now have my movie camera handy if they return.
Several sites said the odds of seeing one white albino turkey is one in 100,000. Wonder how that works if you have two!
These were ALL white with reddish pink eyes. Photo attached.

 

[R2elk]

Over the weekend we had our usual group of 30+ wild turkeys ramble through, however, there were two new albino turkeys in the group. I Googled 'white turkeys' and was directed to your group.
I took a photo on my phone and now have my movie camera handy if they return.
Several sites said the odds of seeing one white albino turkey is one in 100,000. Wonder how that works if you have two!
These were ALL white with reddish pink eyes. Photo attached.

No way to tell anything from that tiny photo.

White turkeys are common. Because a turkey is white does not mean it is an albino.

 

[ColtHandorf]

If indeed you could see their eyes and they were white, the male and female that produced them must carry the recessive gene so I could see there being more than one in a clutch. I am surprised to see that two white individuals made it to that size as white stands out. It's more likely that someone's domestic turkeys were released or escaped and joined up with a wild flock though. If you can try to get some better pictures or videos we'd be interested in seeing them.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

That is what I was thinking it is most likely somebody's domestic turkey escaped.

 

[Bo Garrett]

Not entirely uncommon in the SE U.S. to see albinism in wild turkey flocks. Had a friend in MS that saw them regularly,

Blessings,

Bo

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It's probably a regular one that left a property. We had a hen that got loose and ended up throwing quite a few white into the wild flock for a few years

 

[yesterDAYNE]

According to a few sites I looked at Albino turkeys are about 1 in 100,000... so I'm not sure there could be that many albinos in one group. Plus, albino animals don't usually last very long in the wild due to being a walking target, so the likelihood of more then one making it to that size isn't great. I could only find a few albino turkey pictures online, but I'm not sure how legitimate they are (Can't see the eyes)

https://www.turkeyandturkeyhunting....bblers-later-hunter-still-finds-new-surprises
https://www.alloutdoor.com/2019/04/04/georgia-hunter-takes-white-wild-turkey/ (pictures of dead turkey)

https://twitter.com/x/status/448532348788031488

https://twitter.com/x/status/449277303269638144

(not sure on the picture, but mentions some info about how rare they are)
^ This is all I could find about Albino turkeys, and none of them really seem to say definitively that they were found to be albino. Maybe they are? Don't know.


The closest I could find was a Leucistic, which are white but still show some color. A beautiful bird though!

Spoiler: dead leucistic turkey

https://www.nwtf.org/hunt/article/leucistic-eastern-wild-turkey

Sorry for the spoiler! Some people might not want to see freshly dead images without warning (including myself lol) so I like to give people a chance to not look if they'd rather not