Porter's Rare Heritage Turkeys |

Chocolate Turkeys

The name describes the color of its feathers, shanks and feet. They used to be common in the south and in France. This turkey variety was well established in the southern part of the U.S. before the Civil War which caused a great decline in turkey breeding throughout the southeastern states and the Chocolate turkey never recovered to pre-war popularity. They are the same size as Black turkeys and are very rare .

Chocolate describes a variation of the plumage color due to the epistatic interaction between black and brown genes. Which means that they are basically a black bird which has been diluted to the chocolate coloration by the presence of the sexlinked brown gene. The toms have two (ee) brown genes while the hens have only one (e-)

The genotype for a purebred chocolate is BBee for toms and BBe- for hens. Black based with brown dilution genes.

The poult at hatch has a down color pattern that resembles a black poult with a substitution of a brown pigment where the black would normally be present. The adult bird has a solid milk chocolate color.

Any white barring or light colored spots in the wings or bronze patterns and or white tipping in the feathers is a fault in this variety.

Most chocolate turkeys today are not pure, they are definitely carriers of (b+)bronze and (ng)narragansett genes, some may even carry one dose of (r)red as well.

So when breeding these unpure chocolates, a few Auburns,Silver Auburns and red carriers can pop out as well.

I am working to develop a line of chocolates to be the correct, solid chocolate brown color. I am using the best colored birds that I possibly can in my breeding groups that have the most potential of producing the correct type.

6 month old chocolate hens

8 week old chocolate poults

The correct chocolate poult color/pattern

Only chocolate poults will be included in orders, you will not receive any auburns like the major hatcheries will send you.

Poult price - $10.50 each (Limit 6 per order)

A minimum order of 15 poults is required to be able to ship them safely so they will be able to keep each other warm enough in the box during shipping. So you will have to choose another variety or two to come up with the required number to ship. If you don't desire to place at least the minimum order of 15, we will not be able to except your request.