Norfolk Black Turkey cross-breeds?

[Serb]

Hey all,
So long story short: I've 6 Norfolk black turkeys all "pure breed" with 3 stags and 3 hens. I thought they were all pure breed until i incubated 15 of the females eggs and i got 2 white and 1 that looks like a bronze chick and the rest are Norfolk Black chicks even though a few have orange spots on their heads.
My question is how on earth can you get white turkey chicks from the black turkeys? I understand you can get bronze but not white? I know a lot about genetics in birds but this baffled me completely.
Thanks for any help!

 

[R2elk]

Hey all,
So long story short: I've 6 Norfolk black turkeys all "pure breed" with 3 stags and 3 hens. I thought they were all pure breed until i incubated 15 of the females eggs and i got 2 white and 1 that looks like a bronze chick and the rest are Norfolk Black chicks even though a few have orange spots on their heads.
My question is how on earth can you get white turkey chicks from the black turkeys? I understand you can get bronze but not white? I know a lot about genetics in birds but this baffled me completely.
Thanks for any help!

Obviously your "Norfolk Blacks" are not pure black turkeys. My guess is that at least some of them are barred blacks rather than pure blacks which would imply that at least some of them are carrying recessive bronze genes. The explanation for the white poults depends on whether they are actually white turkeys or some other variety that starts out white such as Royal Palms. There are others. If they are actually white turkeys, at least one tom and one hen are each carrying the recessive white gene which when a poult ends up with a pair of the white genes, it will hide all of the other color genes.

Your conclusion that the remainder of the poults are "Norfolk Black chicks even though a few have orange spots on their heads." is not logical. You apparently don't have pure stock to start with so it is unlikely that you would produce pure offspring.

You may want to check out Porter's Turkey Color Calculator.

 

[Serb]

Obviously your "Norfolk Blacks" are not pure black turkeys. My guess is that at least some of them are barred blacks rather than pure blacks which would imply that at least some of them are carrying recessive bronze genes. The explanation for the white poults depends on whether they are actually white turkeys or some other variety that starts out white such as Royal Palms. There are others. If they are actually white turkeys, at least one tom and one hen are each carrying the recessive white gene which when a poult ends up with a pair of the white genes, it will hide all of the other color genes.

Your conclusion that the remainder of the poults are "Norfolk Black chicks even though a few have orange spots on their heads." is not logical. You apparently don't have pure stock to start with so it is unlikely that you would produce pure offspring.

You may want to check out Porter's Turkey Color Calculator.

I really appreciate your reply
I looked everywhere online and nowhere could i find that 2 black turkeys could produce pure white turkeys(unless they grow black feathering amongst the white like the Royal Palm as you mentioned).
Don't worry once i saw the turkey poults i knew they weren't pure breed but here's the interesting part. I take notice of everything very closely when breeding with pure breds and i noticed that the bronze, whites and the blacks with orange spots on their heads all came from the same mother while all the chicks that look like normal Norfolk Black chicks came from another female but the stag/tom is father of all the poults. So, so far I'm thinking it's the one female who isn't the pure bred. I've 14 more turkey eggs in the incubator (due next week) from the 3 females so i will see if the female who i think is pure breed will have any cross-breeds poults. The 3rd female laid after i had the eggs in the incubator so i dunno what the case is with her.
Also to mention the hen who i think is a pure breed is a bit smaller than the other 2 and laid every day and laid small eggs while the other 2 laid every two days and the eggs were much bigger. Dunno if that says much I'm just about over a beginner to Turkey's.

I'll snatch a few shots of my turkeys so people reading this can get a better look into this

 

[Serb]

This is the female who produced all the mixed poults (the other 2 hens are brooding and i couldn't get a good pic of one of them and the other is siting on eggs under bush two houses away from mine).

 

[Serb]

This is the male who mated with all the females. He looks a bit down because my turkeys are starting to moult.

 

[Serb]

These 2 are my other 2 males who didn't breed with the females since they are a bit younger. All my Turkeys are less than a year old.

 

[Serb]

This is the poult who i think is a bronze turkey

 

[Serb]

I've 2 of these white chicks (had 3 but one hatched at the wrong end and didn't make it).

 

[Serb]

Have 3 chicks that have orange spots on their heads like this one.

 

[Serb]

All the poults above came from the same hen.