My wife came upon a group of turkey and got a video of them with her phone. As they fly up, you can see one at the back of the group is white. The video isn't close, so it may be hard to see. But it is on the right side of the video. Do wild turkey have an albino phase? Or is this more than likely a domestic bird that escaped?

Usually domestic turkeys have clipped wings dont they?

I don't know. I was hoping one of y'all would have an answer. If it's wild, and albino, that would be a cool mount.

Domestics have been breed for breast meet and I don't believe they can fly because of their genetics...an albino would make a kool mount.

Maybe its a wild/ domestic cross? Would be a cool mount but everyone woukd assume you had a domestic turkey mounted

There are several color phases of wild turkey one is almost all white. True albinos are much more rare than the different color phases but do exist.

Domestic turkeys are just turkeys bred in captivity for many years, the Native Americans had domesticated turkeys and very early explorers took turkey back to Europe and the English thought they came from Turkey so called them turkeys only to find out the turkeys came from the New World. The Pilgrims brought turkeys over when they came to the now US.





http://www.nwtf.org/all_about_turkeys/new_turkey_look.html

We had 3 solid white ones on our place about 10 years ago. All 3 stayed together with about 10 other hens. I still have the video somewhere, but one of the guys shot one. Wasn't there at the time to see if it was a true albino, but there is no doubt they were solid white.

Domesticated wild birds become white within a few generations. I believe wood ducks start into the white phase within 3 generations in captivity. The recessive genes can start becoming expressed, since it is no longer advantageous to not be white.

In occurs in the wild too, but the recessive genes aren't typically expressed, because birds that are albino get eaten at a young age die to lack of camouflage ability. Every now and then one survives.



Domestics can fly if they aren't wing clipped and you don't over feed them. They don't fly well because they have been bred to select for larger breast size which overloads their wing loading coefficient, but they can fly. It is a Common misconception because most domestic birds do get their wings clipped.

Thanks for the good info guys. I have never seen a white turkey and didn't know if that was a possibility.

There are a bunch around the Grandview area. Im not saying that particular one wasn't albino though. I am just saing the few around Grandview are not. I was told it was wild birds breeding domestic. Albino is not genetic is it?

Domestic commercial gobblers are bred to have large breasts. But they have bred for this for so long that their breasts are too large for them to mate with a hen. All commercial turkey breeding is done artificially now. Don't know if the same is true for non-commercial domestic gobblers.
When I was picking up my gobbler a few years ago from the taxidermist, he had a white one on the wall. The hunter said it ran around with wild turkeys and he'd never seen one before so he shot it on the last day of season with a rifle... and blew the back side out so that's why it's a flying mount. It was also a young bird.
It's NOT an albino. It had dark eyes and a black beard, rest was solid white. I took a couple of pics cause I hadn't seen one before.

domestic white don't fly, EVER, my mom raised both white & bronze, never had white come from bronze hatching

This is a flock of turkeys near my house in NC. We have a decent number of the smokey grey color turkeys. This pic was taken from my truck so its not great, but you can see the grey and white mixed feathers.

We have one on our place too. He's a real turkey.

whitepalms turkeys are pretty common yard art