Heritage - Broad Breast crosses

[aliciaplus3]

My DD set 43 turkey eggs Saturday, 5 of them are from the lady up the road that has a BBB hen covered by a standard bronze tom. The rest of the eggs are from our flock, we have a breeding pen of blacks and barred blacks. If I understand porters turkey calculator correctly we will get a few colors out of there black, barred black, chocolate, and barred chocolate with all the chocolates being female. There is a slight chance that our tom in this pen is 1/4 BB. We also have a pen set up with a slate looking tom. I am excited to see what hatches!

 

[jakeopatty]

Hi guys! So I have a Narragansett Tom who I mated with a Broad Breasted White, and the outcome wasn't as surprising! I was blessed with 3/3 turkey poults to hatch and all look just like their dad! None showing any signs of white except on the breast! I hope this helps with anyone who has a question regarding the colors of the twos offspring will be!

 

[R2elk]

Hi guys! So I have a Narragansett Tom who I mated with a Broad Breasted White, and the outcome wasn't as surprising! I was blessed with 3/3 turkey poults to hatch and all look just like their dad! None showing any signs of white except on the breast! I hope this helps with anyone who has a question regarding the colors of the twos offspring will be!

The only way you would have gotten white poults from that cross is if your tom was carrying a hidden recessive white color gene. It requires two white genes for a turkey to come out white. In your case each of the poults received one white color gene from their mother.

If you want to learn about turkey color genetics, go to Porter's Rare Heritage Turkeys. You can use the Turkey Color calculator to see what you should get from different crosses.

Narragansett tom over BBW hen should produce:Narragansett Semi-Color hens and Bronze Semi-Color toms.

I say should because you can't look at a white turkey and know what other color genes it might be carrying. The homozygous white color genes will mask all the other color genes whether they are dominant or recessive.

The one thing that will give you a clue to the masked color genes is the eye color. Brown eyes equals bronze based and blue eyes equals black based.

 

[jakeopatty]

The only way you would have gotten white poults from that cross is if your tom was carrying a hidden recessive white color gene. It requires two white genes for a turkey to come out white. In your case each of the poults received one white color gene from their mother.

If you want to learn about turkey color genetics, go to Porter's Rare Heritage Turkeys. You can use the Turkey Color calculator to see what you should get from different crosses.

Narragansett tom over BBW hen should produce:Narragansett Semi-Color hens and Bronze Semi-Color toms.

I say should because you can't look at a white turkey and know what other color genes it might be carrying. The homozygous white color genes will mask all the other color genes whether they are dominant or recessive.

The one thing that will give you a clue to the masked color genes is the eye color. Brown eyes equals bronze based and blue eyes equals black based.

Hmmm interesting. I did that cross on the turkey calculator and I've noticed the babies look different.

 

[R2elk]

Hmmm interesting. I did that cross on the turkey calculator and I've noticed the babies look different.

Using a Narragansett tom over non Narragansett hens produces sex links. All females will be some type of Narragansett because hens can only have one Narragansett gene since it is on the male chromosome. The males will not be a Narragansett because they have to have two Narragansett genes for it to be displayed.

 

[jakeopatty]

Using a Narragansett tom over non Narragansett hens produces sex links. All females will be some type of Narragansett because hens can only have one Narragansett gene since it is on the male chromosome. The males will not be a Narragansett because they have to have two Narragansett genes for it to be displayed.

What am I looking for to sex link them exactly?

 

[R2elk]

In the mix you have there may not be enough difference in the poult color to tell them apart. Someone that is really experienced may be able to tell bronze poults from Narragansett poults. They look too similar to each other for me to tell them apart until they have their adult feathers.

If your question is about making sex links, there are two sex linked color genes. Narragansett and Brown are the color genes that are sex linked.

One good example that you can tell on hatch day is crossing a Chocolate tom with a Black hen, All of the chocolate poults are hens and all of the black poults are males.