Who's your daddy?

[jasonm11]

I have two tom's that might be daddy, how do i tell which? One is a BR with a messed up foot that hardly ever accomplishes his mission. the other is a Merriam. I have poults that look to be BR and some that appear to be Merriam. Can you help me with the paternity, you know in case of a custody battle or something. Also i am hoping this will be next years breeder, does he look to be straight BR?

His brothers and sisters

 

[jasonm11]

I forgot to mention that I had two hens sitting in the same building. I am assuming some of the poults are from the other hen, she is a bronze and both toms were loving her as well.

 

[Lagerdogger]

The poult is a bourbon red, so both parents had to contribute a red gene. I assume the hen was bourbon red?

Bourbon red tom X bronze hen will give all red bronze poults, which look like bronzes but are somewhat more yellow. I don't see any of these in the photo.

The dark poults I see do not look like red bronze, so I would guess those are Mariam X bronze, which should pretty much look bronze.

So it looks like your bourbon reds mated successfully, and your Meriam and bronze mated successfully.

 

[jasonm11]

thanks for the info i really apreciate it. What would I get if the BR hen and Meriam tom mated? Is there a cheat cheat on what you will get if you mix breed bird?

 

[Lagerdogger]

If you go to Porter's Heritage Turkeys, he has the genetic information on a number of breeds. There are some other sites as well, but his is the easiest to read. if you have a basic understanding of genetics, you can tell what happens when you mix two birds of known genetic makeup. Sometimes the genes of the parents are not known, but can be figured out by the colors of the poults. Sometimes, the actual observed color can be influenced by a single recessive gene, which starts to complicate things. Sometimes the same genetic makeup is expressed differently in males and females. Color genetics is a fun and interesting field.