The complete "original turkey color pattern" genotype:
Known as "normal, no mutations" bronze or wild type, it 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, and 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)
The 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 Narragansett (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 (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 its own or just a modifier of b'. At this time, we list this as Pn for normal and pn for the pencilling mutation.