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No mention of roo..? If you do happen to have a turken roo from the same place, breed them together. Chances would be small, but perhaps he would happen to have the mottle gene. Mottle and mille is due to the same gene- difference in name is just due to what color the bird is otherwise. Mottle on a black bird is called mottle, mottle on a buff black tailed bird often is called mille fleur.
If you want to keep the turken type your hens have, highly recommend breeding with a hatchery turken roo, especially a red or buff one for mille fleur.
Crossing with leghorn will introduce variety of problems, such as white in earlobes(very hard to get rid of), may 'introduce' nervous or aggressive birds(if the leghorn line is prone to flightiness), variety of weights and body type.
Someone suggested RIR- not a bad one as they are close to general turken type, but beware that hatchery/production bred lines of RIR are famous for having very aggressive roosters(they keep showing up in the behavior section). They're bred strictly for production, not personality so mean roosters are not culled out... Using RIR can lead to red mottled birds.
If you like mottle with buff color background(which is what mille fleur is, basically- with a black tail), New Hampshires could be a good choice. Both of them and RIR are good for keeping the yellow skin(yellow legs) and not having white in the earlobes, plus being dual purpose much like hatchery turkens.
Mottle is recessive, so it will not show up in the cross chicks. The quickest way to get more would be to keep a naked necked son with the type you like and breed it back to that hen- will get half mottled chicks. Once you have two mottled parents, the chicks will be 100% mottled.
That hen probably is not pure for the naked neck gene(big feathery bow tie), so if you do a cross with a not naked neck rooster, only half of the chicks will have naked necks.
We would love to see pictures of your mille hen & know which hatchery she came from too. It seems there's a few mottleds showing up in orders from at least one hatchery- there was a separate thread with pictures of a buff hen with mottling, owner did not mention what hatchery, though.
No mention of roo..? If you do happen to have a turken roo from the same place, breed them together. Chances would be small, but perhaps he would happen to have the mottle gene. Mottle and mille is due to the same gene- difference in name is just due to what color the bird is otherwise. Mottle on a black bird is called mottle, mottle on a buff black tailed bird often is called mille fleur.
If you want to keep the turken type your hens have, highly recommend breeding with a hatchery turken roo, especially a red or buff one for mille fleur.
Crossing with leghorn will introduce variety of problems, such as white in earlobes(very hard to get rid of), may 'introduce' nervous or aggressive birds(if the leghorn line is prone to flightiness), variety of weights and body type.
Someone suggested RIR- not a bad one as they are close to general turken type, but beware that hatchery/production bred lines of RIR are famous for having very aggressive roosters(they keep showing up in the behavior section). They're bred strictly for production, not personality so mean roosters are not culled out... Using RIR can lead to red mottled birds.
If you like mottle with buff color background(which is what mille fleur is, basically- with a black tail), New Hampshires could be a good choice. Both of them and RIR are good for keeping the yellow skin(yellow legs) and not having white in the earlobes, plus being dual purpose much like hatchery turkens.
Mottle is recessive, so it will not show up in the cross chicks. The quickest way to get more would be to keep a naked necked son with the type you like and breed it back to that hen- will get half mottled chicks. Once you have two mottled parents, the chicks will be 100% mottled.
That hen probably is not pure for the naked neck gene(big feathery bow tie), so if you do a cross with a not naked neck rooster, only half of the chicks will have naked necks.
We would love to see pictures of your mille hen & know which hatchery she came from too. It seems there's a few mottleds showing up in orders from at least one hatchery- there was a separate thread with pictures of a buff hen with mottling, owner did not mention what hatchery, though.
