explaination of chick colors for blue slate turkeys

[ChickenJesus]

I'm new to turkeys and bought some blue slates and burbon reds for the farm. Hatched out our first turkeys a week ago and I got two different colors of chicks. Black and grey. The hen and tom that produced these chicks were both grey chicks themselves. Anybody have an explanation for the two color variations? Could the black ones be from crosses between my two breeds? And the picture below is not mine, just one I pulled of the internet but the chicks do look like what I'm observing with my hatches.

 

[R2elk]

I'm new to turkeys and bought some blue slates and burbon reds for the farm. Hatched out our first turkeys a week ago and I got two different colors of chicks. Black and grey. The hen and tom that produced these chicks were both grey chicks themselves. Anybody have an explanation for the two color variations? Could the black ones be from crosses between my two breeds? And the picture below is not mine, just one I pulled of the internet but the chicks do look like what I'm observing with my hatches.

When you mate a Blue Slate to a Blue Slate, there are 3 possible outcomes. Fifty percent should be Blue Slate, twenty-five percent should be Self Blue (aka Lavender) and 25% should be black. To get those ratios you have to produce lots of poults.

The Blue Slate poults will be a darker grayish blue. The Self Blue will be a visibly lighter color grayish blue and the Blacks will be black.

The reason for the 3 different colors is that the Blue Slate are heterozygous for the slate color gene (Dd).

http://www.porterturkeys.com/slateselfblue.htm

 

[ChickenJesus]

The reason for the 3 different colors is that the Blue Slate are heterozygous for the slate color gene (Dd).

http://www.porterturkeys.com/slateselfblue.htm

Perfect! Thank you!

 

[ChickenChaser43]

When you mate a Blue Slate to a Blue Slate, there are 3 possible outcomes. Fifty percent should be Blue Slate, twenty-five percent should be Self Blue (aka Lavender) and 25% should be black. To get those ratios you have to produce lots of poults.

The Blue Slate poults will be a darker grayish blue. The Self Blue will be a visibly lighter color grayish blue and the Blacks will be black.

The reason for the 3 different colors is that the Blue Slate are heterozygous for the slate color gene (Dd).

http://www.porterturkeys.com/slateselfblue.htm

R2elk is there a trick to using the color calculator on Porter's site? I have attempted to figure it out and couldn't. Sort of gave up because of the complexity that it appeared to have. I was hoping to just insert my breeds and get a result but it has a lot of info to fill in. I even installed Mozilla thinking it would help. I read the feather color genetics page and can grasp a little of what they are saying.

 

[R2elk]

R2elk is there a trick to using the color calculator on Porter's site? I have attempted to figure it out and couldn't. Sort of gave up because of the complexity that it appeared to have. I was hoping to just insert my breeds and get a result but it has a lot of info to fill in. I even installed Mozilla thinking it would help. I read the feather color genetics page and can grasp a little of what they are saying.

The default color genes are the same for all the turkeys except for the specific color genes listed for a specific variety.

Bronze = bb CC dd EE NN PnPn RR SlSl SpSp

You can get the needed color gene information either from the Phenotypes and Genotypes page or from the description of the individual varieties that can be found under the Color Varieties tab on the main site.

For Bronze only bb is listed which means all the rest of the color genes stay the same and only the first pair needs to be changed to bb to get Bronze.

Blue Slate is just listed as Slate with BB Dd meaning that the first pair gets changed to BB and the third pair needs to be changed to Dd while all the other genes stay the same.

Bourbon Reds are listed as bb rr so those are the only two pairs that need to be changed.

Crossing a Blue Slate with a Bourbon Red will make 50% Rusty Black (Bb Rr) and 50% Rusty Slate (Bb Dd Rr). Where it gets really interesting is by mating a Rusty Slate to a Rusty Slate. That mating can produce up to 27 different color varieties because of the 3 pairs of heterozygous color genes.

I do recommend to uncheck the Hide Genotypes box so that you get to see the color genes for the offspring.

Good luck.

 

[101atworld]

Hello, I know this is an old thread, but I was hoping someone can answer my question. What do you call the black poults hatched from blue slates? Are they black slates?

 

[R2elk]

Hello, I know this is an old thread, but I was hoping someone can answer my question. What do you call the black poults hatched from blue slates? Are they black slates?

They are Black turkeys. They do not have the slate gene (D). They will breed true and will only produce other black turkeys if bred to other black turkeys.

 

[Blosthed]

I had a blue slate Tom and white Holland mother produce two black chicks. Is that unusual?

 

[R2elk]

I had a blue slate Tom and white Holland mother produce two black chicks. Is that unusual?

Nope, black is a dominant color gene and only needs one copy of the gene for the black color to be expressed. Blue Slates are homozygous for the black color gene. Depending on whether the White Holland is black based (blue eyes) or bronze based (brown eyes) your blacks may be homozygous or heterozygous for the black color gene.