Sexing poults?

[MeghanFaith]

I have a Blue Slate poult who is now 5 1/2 weeks old. Are there any clues I should look for to tell gender? I'm leaning towards it being a girl.



Here are the other two that hatched this past week.

Slate


Self-blue

 

[WalnutHill]

I agree, girl on the blue slate because of skinny shanks and tapered head, but I think the other two are boys based on the boxy shape of their heads (nothing else to go by).

 

[MeghanFaith]

I will get better pictures tomorrow. I've had a rough time hatching these guys and I lost one from both batches! I'm not sure about the lineage of the parents. The lady I get the eggs from got them as adults without any background info so they could be brother/sister. However, I found someone further out that is going to sell me 3 poults that are 5-6 weeks old. Two are splash and one black I believe. I'm hoping that will bring in some diversity and maybe in the future create hardier chicks. God willing they all stay healthy and live to breeding age!

 

[WalnutHill]

I see you labeled the first two as slate, they sure don't look like slate to me, they look like mottled black.

 

[MeghanFaith]

I copied this off porters turkeys...
"A Slate, is black based with a single dominant slate gene. (Genotype: BBDd), They are commonly called blue slate, sometimes called a Splash, their phenotype is slate or ashy blue with specks of black scattered over the feathers. The Self Blue "aka Lavender" is also black based but have two dominant slate genes.(Genotype:BBDD),they are more of a solid, dull, grayish-blue with the hens a lighter bluish gray. The Black (Genotype:BBdd)is just that, black.

At maturity, these new slates had black flecks throughout the
plumage. These flecks varied in size; and in some cases an entire feather was black. Breeders liked this "rich grey" appearance of these new slates on a black base and called them "blues" or "blue splashes". And then the confusion really started because many breeders also bred chickens. In chickens, blue refers to a heterozygous
blue, and splash to a washed-out, splotchy homozygous light colored
bird. But in turkeys they started calling the heterozygous bird blue splash.

<< blue slate

<<Self blue


I think a mottled black is a blue slate.
If you breed Slate to Slate then you can get either a slate, self-blue or black. If you breed self blue to slate you will just get either a slate or self-blue. Which is what the hatcheries and most ppl do so they don't get any unwanted black poults.
One of the poults that didn't make it was black and it looked like this picture below. However that picture is a Black Spanish ( I couldn't find any of a black blue slate poult, I'm assuming because most don't like to breed slate to slate)

The lady I get my eggs from must have a Slate tom and a slate hen

Anyways I'm not trying to be all know it all or anything. I could VERY well be wrong and it is a mottled black because there is still a lot I don't know about turkeys. Especially since this is my first batch

 

[MeghanFaith]

On another note when I looked at the first picture It does look like a lot of black in her feathers. My camera and lighting sucks its really more a darker grey, she doesn't have much if any black to speak of quite yet in her plumage.

 

[WalnutHill]

I've had Black Spanish (pure black with iridescent sheen), poults are black with yellow face like yours with yellow on wings and belly. I've had Mottled Black, which look like Black Spanish with some white flecking, and poults are black with yellow face and often yellow spots on wing or belly, but as they feather, white flecks show up. I've had Slate, which are slate gray with black flecks of varying intensity and the poults are light gray with yellow mixed in, and self blue, which are pure ashy gray with no black or white markings and the poults have only a little yellow on the heads.

These are a couple of my Slates, tom shows the flecking:



I've also had many mixes, last year included Mottled Black x Bronze which showed some wing and tail barring through the solids, Self Blue x Bourbon Red which show the BR only in chestnut on the tail fan cover and a faint shading in the wings, and Bronze x Narragansett which came out as darker Narragansett without the fading on the wing secondaries.

Time will tell on what your birds look like, and remember that colors are only genetic jigsaw puzzles, they aren't different breeds.

A Black Blue Slate will look like a Black Spanish. A Black turkey is a Black turkey.

http://www.porterturkeys.com/mottledblack.htm Here is a mottled black.