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.
