Turkey Color Genetics Lessons

[toadbriar]

Agreed. This thread is a goldmine. Thanks for the hard work

 

[KrisH]

This is awesome, but what about the jersey buffs. We have a tom and a hen, hoping to have pults in the spring, and will be working on breeding this variety only. Any info on them would be wonderful.

 

[Lagerdogger]

Quote:
I've never raised Jersey Buffs, but they seem simple enough. Porters Heritage Turkeys has a brief history of how they were developed. Genetically, they are like bourbon reds, but they are black-based instead of bronze-based. SInce they are homozygous at both locations BBrr, they will always breed true, so your hen and tom should just throw Jersey Buffs and you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[Lagerdogger]

Quote:
No doubt Kevin Porter knows way more than me about turkey genetics. I am still learning as I go. As to my background, I have a B.S. and M.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of Montana. That is where I learned basic genetics. I used Porters site to find out what the genotypes were for different colors (strains, breeds,varieties) of turkeys. I've also read a little in books about turkey genetics. I never really understood how the sex-linking in fowl worked until I found this fun site. I think I got it now. I have also played around a little with breeding my own birds. Some of my favorite colored birds are those with wing coverts that contrast with the rest of the wing, like Porter's Golden Phoenix and Red Phoenix. Since I live in Minnesota, I can't buy from small places like Porter's, so I can't order the birds I want, so I have to figure out how to breed for them. (I'm breeding two pairs this spring. One pair has a one in eight chance of throwing golden phoenix, the other pair has 1 in 8 for the hens but only 1 in 16 for the toms).

So the final answer is I learned genetics in college, and learned about turkey specifics by reading and doing. While I am not the world's foremost expert on turkey genetics by any means, it seemed obvious from some of the questions and comments that many people have never studied genetics and are crossing birds without knowing what to expect. I hoped these short discussions would help some of them out.

One last comment...you may have noticed that I have only talked about a few colors of turkeys. That's because these are colors I've played with myself. For example, I don't want to get into the blues because there are lots of ways to make blue turkeys with different bases and whether or not they are homozygous or heterozygous. There was recenlty a very vigorous discussion of what makes a lavendar, for example. Since I don't raise these, I thought it best to just stay out of it.

 

[sebastopol]

Thank you for these lessons!!

I want to know the color genotypes of my turkeys and I have to study all the theory.
I am crazy with the colours of my turkeys. Some gray, other dark brown, medium brown, black, white. And one female colored with medium-light brown mixed with grey.
And some spotted and other with a few Royal Palm patron feathers.

I have bred from 6 Royal Palm hens, and also with 2 white hens I bought probably bred from Palms, and the tom of all the progeny is a solid black, with any mark of other colour.
He is a purebreed Majorca turkey, absolut shiny black with only green reflections.

 

[kiaa]

like
beautiful turky good luck

 

[erinszoo]

This is all great information but ... it still doesn't explain why my turkeys eyes changed from blue to brown at 7 months of age and one of the eyes only half way. Any help? Porter's says that brown eyes are the standard color for White Hollands as far as judging goes but that the original eye color for the breed was blue. It doesn't make sense that her eyes would change color so late. I know in humans babies are born with blue eyes and that their eyes change color within the first few weeks or months and kittens are born with pretty much black eyes and the color changes later but can that happen in a turkey. I know the genetics are all a little different there. With our other birds the eye color has remained constant, geese eyes are blue, chicken eyes are yellow, duck is brown ...

 

[WhiteMountainsRanch]

Great thread! I look forward to reading more!

 

[omegorchards]

I have a few birds in my Midget White (or Beltsville Small White if you prefer- because there is really no way to tell) flock that have blue eyes. This trait seems interesting to me and I would like to understand its genetics (how is this trait passed, dominant/recessive, sex linked, etc) if known. Some birds have a partial blue ring around the outside of their eyes while some have completely blue eyes. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thank you. Mike

 

[K Epp]

Very informative. Thank-you for sharing. I just got Narry and Bourbon Red Toms to go with my Standard Bronze hens. This really explained what I will get from the breeding.