Buzz
Each year, Americans consume over 200 million turkeys. But how much do you really know about the bird that Benjamin Franklin believed would be a more fitting symbol for America than the bald eagle?
10. Most Farmed Turkeys Are Inseminated Through Artificial Methods
The large breast size on commercially raised turkeys prevents them from mating naturally. As a result, these broad-breasted turkeys need artificial insemination to produce viable eggs.
However, you can't simply show a tom a picture of a well-endowed hen and expect results. Toms must be “milked” for their semen, a process typically handled by a team of at least four individuals.
It takes around two minutes to collect a tom's semen, usually requiring no more than four strokes of the cloaca. The National Institutes of Health recommends limiting the strokes to one or two per collection to avoid injury (to the turkey, not the handler).
The semen is collected in a small glass, then extracted using a syringe and stored in a bottle. It must be used promptly, ideally within 30 minutes. The semen is then inserted into a hen using a syringe or a plastic straw—in essence, a turkey baster.
If you prefer a more traditional approach and don't mind spending $150 or more, you can choose a “Heritage” turkey. For a turkey to be classified as Heritage, it must mate naturally, grow at a slow pace, and have a long and productive lifespan.
9. Benjamin Franklin Explored Various National Symbols Before Settling on the Turkey
In a letter to the Pennsylvania Journal dated 1775, Franklin proposed the rattlesnake as the “emblem of magnanimity and courage,” symbolizing “the temper and conduct of America.” However, by the time the Continental Congress assigned him, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams the task of designing the national seal, Franklin had seemingly changed his views.
Franklin’s suggestion—a scene featuring Moses and Pharaoh—was not well received by Adams and Jefferson, who preferred a more allegorical symbol. In the end, the three reached a compromise with an image of Lady Liberty supporting a shield representing the states. However, the Continental Congress rejected this design, and after several more compromises, the bald eagle was chosen as the national symbol.
Benjamin Franklin was displeased with the final choice. In a letter to his daughter, written about eight years later, he expressed: “For my part, I wish the eagle had not been chosen as the representative of this country. He is a bird of bad moral character; he does not earn his living honestly… in truth, the turkey is in comparison a much more respectable bird, and besides (though a little vain and silly, it is true, but not the worse emblem for that) a bird of courage.”
8. Every Hen Loves A Sharp-Dressed Tom
Clothing may define a man, but it's the feathers that help a tom win over a mate. While hens are typically plain in brown or gray, a tom displays an iridescent chest adorned with feathers in hues of green, copper, bronze, red, purple, and gold. Much like a peacock, he flaunts a ‘fan’ of 18 tail feathers, reaching up to 38 centimeters (15 in) long during mating season.
The tom also sports a ‘beard’—a specialized feather growing from the center of his chest. While a wild turkey’s beard generally reaches about 23 centimeters (9 in), some have been known to grow even longer. The longest recorded beard stretched an astounding 46 centimeters (18 in). Interestingly, around 10 to 20 percent of hens have beards too, though theirs tend to be shorter than the tom’s.
A handful of rare wild turkeys also exhibit one of four unique color variations, known as “phases.” These can include smoky gray, erythritic (reddish), albino (extremely rare), or melanistic—the turkey’s goth phase, in which the feathers appear completely black.
7. Wild Turkeys Are Capable of Flight
The majority of turkeys consumed in America are farm-raised, ‘broad-breasted’ types. These ‘domestic’ birds have been selectively bred to be exceptionally large, maximizing meat production at the lowest possible cost.
Due to their size, domestic turkeys are slow and flightless. However, wild turkeys, which weigh about half as much and have less breast meat, can run at speeds of 32–40 kilometers (20–25 mi) per hour, only slightly slower than the world’s fastest humans.
Wild turkeys can also fly short distances at speeds of up to 89 kilometers (55 mi) per hour. This ability helps them evade natural predators such as coyotes, foxes, skunks, raccoons, snakes, and dogs. It also allows them to roost in trees at dusk, protecting them from predators with better vision in low light conditions.
6. Turkeys Can Spot You From a Mile Away
Although turkeys struggle to see in the dark, their daytime vision is extraordinary. A turkey’s eyes are placed widely apart on the sides of its head, providing it with a visual range of 270 degrees, compared to our 180 degrees. Unlike humans, who cannot focus on objects in their peripheral vision, a turkey can focus clearly across its entire field of view.
These eyes—combined with the turkey’s ability to rotate its neck fully—allow it to detect a predator (or hunter) from over a mile away. However, due to the positioning of its eyes, a turkey lacks 3-D vision. It compensates by bobbing its head to simulate depth perception.
Turkeys possess seven distinct types of photoreceptors in their eyes, granting them superior color vision and the ability to see light in the UVA spectrum. This means they perceive phosphates in many laundry detergents as a bright, fluorescent blue. So, if you're using one of these detergents, forget the camouflage—you won’t be fooling the turkeys at all.
5. Purrs, Yelps, And Whistles
Only male turkeys produce the characteristic sound known as a “gobble.” During the breeding season, mature toms engage in brief fights to assert dominance. The winner gets the right to breed, while the losers, along with the immature males (“jakes”), must watch and act as bodyguards.
Gobblers typically roam in pairs, with the subordinate male assisting the dominant one in attracting a single hen—or, more often, a harem. During the courtship, both the dominant and subordinate gobblers flush brilliant red and blue around their faces and throats. They also display by strutting, fanning their tails, and dragging their wings along the ground.
Only the dominant male gobbles. Each gobble lasts no longer than a second, but it can be heard by hens up to a mile away. It helps that turkeys have exceptional hearing, despite their “ears” being merely small holes behind their eyes.
Females don’t gobble, but they can cluck and make soft chirping sounds. Turkeys of both genders also cackle, purr, and yelp, and young turkeys whistle to their flock members when they become separated.
4. Wild Turkeys Engage In Foreplay
Once a tom has attracted a hen, he stands on her and gently massages her back by lifting one foot, then the other, for about 10 minutes. When the hen is ready, she lifts her tail, and the tom mounts her.
Despite the lengthy courtship, the actual cloacal kiss lasts only a few seconds. Afterward, the tom vanishes and plays no further role in nesting or caring for his young.
A single mating typically provides enough sperm to fertilize an entire clutch, and a hen can store sperm in her oviduct for up to four weeks. When she's ready, she lays a fertilized egg almost daily until her nest holds between eight and 15 eggs. Then, she incubates the eggs non-stop until they hatch in about 25 days.
The young “poults” don’t stay in the nest for long. Within 24 hours of hatching, they’re already out searching for food.
3. That’s One Big Bird
The heaviest turkey ever recorded was a 39-kilogram (86 lb) bird named Tyson, who clinched the title at the 1989 Heaviest Turkey competition in London. In comparison, the largest wild turkey recorded by the National Wild Turkey Federation weighed just 17 kilograms (37 lbs).
Tyson was later auctioned for charity, fetching a record-breaking $6,692. Since a “dressed” turkey typically weighs 75 percent of its live weight, Tyson would have weighed almost 30 kilograms (65 lbs) after being plucked, at a cost of over $100 per pound.
Other notable turkey-related feats include the fastest time to carve one—3 minutes, 19.47 seconds—and the largest gathering of people dressed as turkeys—661 people in Dallas, Texas, who clearly had nothing better to do in November 2011.
And you thought Star Trek conventions were odd.
2. Some Female Turkeys Can Reproduce Without A Male
Female turkeys have the ability to reproduce without mating, a process known as parthenogenesis or asexual reproduction. In this process, eggs from an unmated hen can develop without fertilization.
All turkeys born through parthenogenesis are male, and they are indistinguishable from males produced by natural or artificial mating. While parthenogenesis in turkeys is rare, it can be triggered by vaccinating hens with certain live viruses, and by exposing hens to the presence of males.
Aside from being male, poults produced by parthenogenesis are genetic clones of their mother. This trait is often desired by breeders, as it helps preserve the characteristics of their most prized females, especially those with larger breasts.
1. When It’s time For A Wild Turkey To Mate, Size Matters
If you’ve ever observed a male turkey flaunting his feathers, you might have noticed the fleshy protuberance hanging from his beak. This is called a snood, and all adult male turkeys, known as “toms” or “gobblers,” have one. The snood doesn’t appear to have a specific function other than attracting a mate. And it turns out, size is important. The tom with the longest snood usually wins the attention of the hens.
When a tom gets excited, his snood becomes engorged with blood and grows larger, similar to how a human's penis reacts—though turkeys don’t have one. Instead, both male and female turkeys have a cloaca, an opening through which the digestive, urinary, and reproductive tracts meet. During mating, known as a “cloacal kiss,” the male transfers semen from his cloaca to the female’s, where it then travels to her oviduct.
Other features of the tom that swell when he's aroused include the caruncles, or nodules (the fleshy orange or red bumps that dangle from his neck), and the dewlap or wattle (the hanging fleshy flap of skin beneath his throat).
