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Albino hen!
- Thread starter Speedwell-Hunter
- Start date
Beautiful smoke phase
Southern Sportsman
Well-Known Member
Not albino, but smoke phase turkeys are incredibly cool.
BSK
Well-Known Member
Gorgeous!
Way prettier than an albino in my opinion!
Does that happen to be close to Melton Hill lake? There are three of those close to where I live... Funny thing is, of all the "crossbreds" that I have seen, every one is a hen
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
We usually have one or two smoke phase hens on my places most years. Been like that for 30 years. I've only seen THREE males that were smoke phase in 30 years. Talk about gorgeous when they were in strut.
RoyalPrudent
Well-Known Member
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- Jun 11, 2020
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pretty sure the color variants are naturally occuring.
That is awesome, not an albino but a smoke phase, I saw my first one in the wild a couple weeks ago hunt in MS. Was more excited seeing her than hearing a turkey gobble
Think what you will but domesticated turkeys you eat are solid white... and many get out from farms, etc... and mix with the wild population and breed with wild turkeys causing this
I had a neighbor growing up, that had some bronze turkeys. One of them lived at least 10 years. It was a gobbler, and he left when wild turkeys started showing up around the area. He never came home either. I'd imagine he bred some wild stock. As far as I know, the local wild turkeys showed no signs of domestic stock.
Speedwell-Hunter
Well-Known Member
Thank you for contacting me. I did not realize that is what they are; as someone mentioned that when they breed with a domestic bird or something, I'm a little bit confused, what causes it?
There are a bunch of them in the Unionville area.
megalomaniac
Well-Known Member
History lesson. The Spaniards captured numerous wild turkeys from North America back in the 1500s and took them back to Europe and domesticated them. The colored genes are naturally occurring in wild turkeys back in the 1500s as well as today. The naturally occurring color variations produced after domestication resulted in solid white birds, solid black birds, red birds, slate blue birds, and black tipped white birds. Those were line bred to produce our current 'heritage' breed birds we see now and you can order at most hatcheries (white, Spanish black, Royal Palm, Narragansett, blue slate,, bourbon red, etc, etc, etc over 100s of years). While 'some' color phased birds in our flock are a result of domesticated birds interbreeding with nondomestic native birds, it's also possible for those color variations to come out in wild turkeys on occasion. So, it's impossible to know whether color phased birds are completely wild versus whether they have some domestic color variations introduced at some point previously. Heck, there are normally colored domesticated Easterns that are common in backyard flocks. They look just like wild easterns, except they weigh 35lbs and have heads and necks twice the size of wild birds (and flight is limited, or even nonexistent... just TOO darn big/fat to fly).
Bottom line... a colored phased bird you encounter in the woods hunting could be completely wild, or could be an escapee from someone's backyard... or an offspring from the interbreeding between the two.
RoyalPrudent
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Think what you will, but science. I'll even give you an example. There are pretty regularly smoke phase hens in Cades cove. They come from visitor center escapees?
And domestic, commercial white turkeys aren't interbreeding with wild turkeys. Due to their overabundant white meat, and insanely fast growth, they struggle to breed even in captivity and have nearly no longevity in the wild because they are incrediblly immoble compared to wild birds.
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Biggun4214
Well-Known Member
Tellico area has the smoke phase show up from time to time. I've heard old timers refer to them as clay-backs.
