The complete "original turkey color pattern" genotype,
known as "normal, no mutations" bronze or wild type is written out like this.
bb CC dd EE NN RR SlSl SpSp
Genes occur in pairs.
Each bird gets one gene from its sire and one from its dam.
At each site (locus) there is a switch with one, two, three or occasionally four options or "alleles".
The final color depends on the sum of alleles at all of the sites.
Upper case letters represent dominant genes, Lower case is recessive.
Color genes in turkeys are not always completely dominant or recessive.
The first site is the
Bronze site.
It has three alleles,
B black, b bronze(normal) and b' black winged bronze.
(B and b' are mutations)
Second, we have the site for
Color. Four alleles at this site. C (normal), cg gray, cm mottling and c white. (cg, cm, and c are mutations)
Third site is.
Dominant Slate. D dominant slate, (mutation) and d (normal)
Fourth is the
Brown site.
E (normal) and e brown. (e is a mutation)
Fifth we have the
Narragansett site:
N (normal) and n Narraganset (mutation).
Sixth is the
Red site:
R (normal) and r red (mutation).
Seventh is the
Recessive Slate site:
Sl (normal) and sl recessive slate (mutation)
Eighth is the
Spotting site:
Sp for (normal) and sp spotting (mutation)
The turkey variety known as the Nebraskan carried this mutation.
There is possibly a Ninth site,
The Pencilling site:
This is still being studied to see if this mutation is
actually located at a different locus of it's own or
just a modifier of b'.
At this time we list this as Pn for normal and pn
for the pencilling mutation.