Help with Turkey Genetics

[Abwilso]

I bread a pair of Royal Palm birds to each other. I had a brownish colored hen hatch along with two black and white hens. The black hens look exactly their mother. The brown has a similar build, but the color is throwing me off. Attached is a photo of the brown hen and some of it’s family members. This brown one looks like a sweetgrass to me, but I don’t understand how it would have come from two royal palms.

 

[R2elk]

I bread a pair of Royal Palm birds to each other. I had a brownish colored hen hatch along with two black and white hens. The black hens look exactly their mother. The brown has a similar build, but the color is throwing me off. Attached is a photo of the brown hen and some of it’s family members. This brown one looks like a sweetgrass to me, but I don’t understand how it would have come from two royal palms.

The only difference between a Royal Palm and a Sweetgrass color genetically is the Narragansett gene. Royal Palm (b1b1 cgcg nn/n-), Sweetgrass (b1b1 cgcg NN/N-).

A Royal Palm hen only has one Narragansett gene (n-). She cannot pass her Narragansett gene onto her female offspring. Royal Palm hens that are bred to a pure Sweetgrass tom will produce all Sweetgrass offspring but only the female offspring will be pure Sweetgrass. The male offspring will be phenotypically Sweetgrass but genotypically they will be carrying a hidden Narragansett gene.

In your case another possibility is if somehow a Bourbon Red had gotten into the mix which when crossed with a Royal Palm can produce a Calico.

 

[NatJ]

I bread a pair of Royal Palm birds to each other. I had a brownish colored hen hatch along with two black and white hens. The black hens look exactly their mother. The brown has a similar build, but the color is throwing me off. Attached is a photo of the brown hen and some of it’s family members. This brown one looks like a sweetgrass to me, but I don’t understand how it would have come from two royal palms.

I do not specifically know turkey genetics, but I am going to assume your Royal Palm male and at least one female are carrying recessive genes that combined to make the one confusing one you have. (That is what usually happens when unexpected offspring happen in breeding any kind of animal.)

So I found this site that talks about turkey colors and genetics:
https://porterturkeys.com/Varieties-c153176750
https://porterturkeys.com/Turkey-Color-Calculator-c153212768

I followed the link to the turkey color calculator, and put in the genes that were listed on the Royal Palm page (changed one dropdown box at a time). Then I looked at what other genes were available. Some of them were dominant genes, and changing them to the recessive form gave things like "chocolate palm" (changed E to e) or "Pencilled Palm" (changed Pn to pn).

Royal Palm page:
https://porterturkeys.com/Royal-Palm-c154544925

Pages for some of the ones that might be possibilities for your puzzling bird:
https://porterturkeys.com/Chocolate-Palm-c154215336
https://porterturkeys.com/Pencilled-Palm-c154536299
https://porterturkeys.com/Pencilled-Red-Palm-c154536300

 

[R2elk]

I do not specifically know turkey genetics, but I am going to assume your Royal Palm male and at least one female are carrying recessive genes that combined to make the one confusing one you have. (That is what usually happens when unexpected offspring happen in breeding any kind of animal.)

It might help you to understand that the Narragansett color gene is sex linked.

If it is as it looks (Sweetgrass hen) the only way for it to happen was if the father was not the Royal Palm or a genetic mutation in which the Royal Palm father somehow did not pass his Narragansett color gene to the bird in question. Because Narragansett is a sex linked gene the Royal Palm mother could not pass on her Narragansett gene to the hen. A Royal Palm hen can only pass her Narragansett gene to her male offspring.

Your suggestions that it is a Chocolate Palm is obviously incorrect. Your suggestion that it could be due to the Penciled gene is also incorrect since it is an incomplete recessive gene that will show the effect to a certain degree even if only one of the genes is present.

It is possible that it could be a Calico but that could only happen if one of the parents was a Calico or a genetic mutation could occur. Again red is an incomplete recessive and does show some effect even when heterozygous.

 

[Bolfreak]

@Abwilso do you have any recent pictures of the hen? I love turkey color threads and am curious as to if her coloring changed?