- Sep 6, 2010
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How did these two chicks end up looking so different? They're from the same parents.
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To be able to answer properly, we would need to know what the parents are. For example if you mate a blue slate hen with a blue slate tom, you can and most likely will get three different looking kinds of chicks.
To be able to answer properly, we would need to know what the parents are. For example if you mate a blue slate hen with a blue slate tom, you can and most likely will get three different looking kinds of chicks.
The blue slates carry a gene for blue and a gene for black. The chicks receive one of each gene from each parent. If the chick gets a blue gene from its father and a blue gene from its mother, it will be a self blue and won't get the black splotches that the blue slate have. As a chick it will be a very light gray color. If the chick gets a blue gene from one parent and a black gene from the other parent, it will be a blue slate and as a chick will have a darker gray color than the self blue chick. If the chick gets the black gene from both parents then it will be a black turkey and as a chick will be mostly black.
One way to be sure to only raise blue slate chicks is to cross a black variant of the blue slate with a self blue variant. One parent can only give the black gene and the other parent can only give the blue gene to the chick resulting in only blue slate chicks.
Without knowing all the facts and without seeing a better picture of the two chicks or their parents they look very similar to a self blue chick and a black chick, both variants of blue slate turkeys.