Help with crossbred color genetics

[popsicle]

I got an order of poults from Porter's a couple months ago. To fill up the order I got some crossbreds. I'm trying to decide who to keep and who to process. I've got a pair of Mottled Chocolates I'm keeping, and I'm debating on keeping my Auburn tom.

I'm not a pro with the turkey colors, so if anybody could give me some ideas what the color genotypes of these birds might be would be a great help!

 

[Arielle]

If you like the chocolate, you are likely to like the auburn too. I have 5 toms, and they are wonderful. Like you I have no girl. Someday . . .

 

[popsicle]

If you like the chocolate, you are likely to like the auburn too. I have 5 toms, and they are wonderful. Like you I have no girl. Someday . . .

If I'm using the Turkey Calculator correctly, the Auburn tom over the Mottled Chocolate hen would produce Auburns and Chocolates... Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I'm sorry to say the color genetics drive me nuts.

Kevin porter has basic color info on his site porter turkeys.com

 

[Lagerdogger]

Auburns are a bronze based chocolate, and mottled chocolates are kind of like a black based chocolate palm with a recessive black-winged base gene. So if you cross these, half the birds will have a black-based and a bronze based gene, and half will have a bronze-based and a black-wing bronze base. They will all carry chocolate genes, but the will also all carry single recessive genes for gray (palm) and Narragansett. The bronze-based/black-wing bronze based birds will look like Auburns, but carrying all the recessives genes. They won't show up until you cross them with a mate that can pair up the recssive genes. The Black-based/bronze based birds will look like chocolates, but again carry recessive gray and narragansett genes. So you read your calculator right, if you realize that the calculator tells you what they will look like (phenotype) rather than what genes they are carrying (genotype).

If you keep crossing these birds, you will be able to ge seveal different color patterns, but they will always display chocolate, such as chocolate, mottled chocolate, auburn, chocolate palm, silver auburn (chocolate Narragansett), etc.

However, I believe your original question was what color are the mixed birds in the photos. Alas, I don't recognize it. Do the primaries have bars or are they all black. What did the poults look like. Are they grey or slightly brown?

 

[popsicle]

Thanks much for the info!

I have five that are the crossbreds with similar colors (two are in the photos above). Some have barring, some don't. Some have a few feathers that express barring.

Here they are as 3-ish day old poults. I assume the ones with stripes are the ones with barred wings, and the plainer ones are the non-barred-winged birds:



Here's a better photo showing some of the wing feathers. You can see a couple that are barred, while most are penciled?


And this one, seems like very washed out barred...?



Unfortunately, I've got 5 toms and maybe 4 hens in the current batch. I've got a pair of Penciled Red Palms, a pair of Mottled Chocolates, one Auburn tom, and I *think* three of the crossbreds are hens. I only have one turkey pen, so I'm trying to figure out who to keep and who's going in the freezer.