With their slightly cross-eyed look, bowed legs and generally vacant expression, turkeys are awkward and comical looking enough to have become the brunt of an extensive repertoire of jokes
Domesticated turkeys get a bad rap — often referred to as one of the dumbest animals on the planet, turkeys have been the brunt of more than one joke. Desperately homely, comically ungainly and sure, maybe a little dumb, it’s almost too easy to poke fun at turkeys.
Have you heard these old-time favourites: What did the turkey have for Thanksgiving dinner? Nothing, he was already stuffed. Or: What does a one-legged turkey say? Wobble-wobble.
In spite of the jokes, turkeys are far from stupid, and have a distinguished background. Today’s commercial turkeys are descended directly from a wild turkey in Mexico that was domesticated by the Aztecs about 800 B.C., called M. gallapavo gallopavo. This breed of turkey was transported to Europe by the Spanish and then finally brought back to North America by early settlers.
Anyone who has ever raised turkeys will have stories to tell of their apparent stupidity, their fragility to adverse conditions and their general oddness. For small farmers the benefits of keeping turkeys become more obvious in the fall and winter months when it comes time to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and even Easter, when their demand is highest and prices soar.
Are they really that dumb?
Turkeys aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed and have gotten themselves into more than one pickle due to limited intelligence. Rumour has it that turkeys are so stupid that they will stand outside in a rainstorm and look up at the sky until they drown themselves. This rumour isn’t without merit.
In the early 1990s a professor from Oregon State University discovered that turkeys have an inherited neurological condition called “tetanic toritcollar spasms” which causes them to stare at the sky for 30 seconds or more, even during a rainstorm, although whether or not any turkeys have ever drowned doing this activity is subject to conjecture.
Phyllis James of Jameshaven Farm has been farming her 100-acre Eastern Ontario farm since
Phyllis James of Jameshaven Farm has been farming her 100-acre Eastern Ontario farm since 1964, and has raised 60 turkeys each year for the past 20 years
1964, and has raised 60 turkeys each year for the past 20 years. James has pretty much seen it all when it comes to these large feathered friends.
James says she’s found that turkeys are no less intelligent than chickens, and have virtually no fear — more curious than stupid. “They’re really nosy, they follow me around,” James said. “I was cutting weeds the other day and they were all around me the whole time, just looking up at me like they were wondering what I was doing.”
James’ experience makes sense: Turkeys are highly social animals that will socialize with humans and other animals and have a distinct hierarchy within their family groups. Such behaviour doesn’t typically manifest in truly unintelligent animals.
The logistics of raising turkeys
Of course, when it comes to raising turkeys, there are some definite drawbacks. Turkey chicks cost more per chick than chickens, and depending on the breed, take approximately 16 to 22 weeks to reach maturity. Given the seasonal demand for turkey, a small farmer will have some logistical issues to deal with when it comes to timing, and a farmer will want to plan for their flock to be ready for slaughter just before Thanksgiving and/or Christmas. This way birds can be taken to slaughter, brought home and picked up or delivered to customers almost immediately.
Here’s why: If you’re raising 100 turkeys, and each turkey weighs approximately 20 lbs, those are big birds to be kept in any numbers in a freezer. In fact, most small farmers pre-sell their turkeys on the condition that when it comes home from the butcher, customers must come out and pick up their bird straight away.
Shown here are the 36 turkeys James purchased to replace the ones lost through predation. Smaller than the first flock of chicks, James has yet to introduce the two flocks together, worrying the difference in size could be a problem
Despite their larger size, turkeys are just as susceptible to predation as chickens, which can cause issues when it comes to the timing described above. In James’ case, this year she purchased her usual 60 turkeys, only to lose 36 three-week-old poults to a mink. She was lucky enough to find replacement chicks almost right away but the new chicks are too small to be raised with her original flock, and could also causes issues when it comes to timing for slaughter.
Another fly in the ointment is that unlike with chickens, customers often purchase only one or two turkeys, which means a broader customer base which is more work for a small farmer to maintain. That said, it’s the very seasonal nature of turkeys that gives a farmer more leeway when it comes to per pound price, and more potential for profit.
Breeds, feeding and more
The American Poultry Association (APA) recognizes just eight breeds of turkeys: Beltsville Small White, Black, Bourbon Red, Bronze, Narragansett, Royal Palm, White Holland and Slate. Turkey size will depend on the breed, but most grow to somewhere between 12 and 20 lbs at 12-14 weeks; heritage breeds will take longer to reach maturity.
The most popular breed in North America is a hybrid not recognized by the APA, the Broad-Breasted White, a breed created by crossing the White Holland and Broad-Breasted Bronze. This breed grows quite large very quickly, with some resulting issues: Firstly, it cannot fly, and secondly, a Tom will grow so large it will be unable to effectively mount a Hen for reproduction. This breed is propagated through artificial insemination.
When it comes to housing, farmers should allow six square feet for each turkey. Brooding temperatures are also a little different for turkeys and overheating can be a real issue with many breeds. Turkeys can be transitioned to pasture at approximately four to six weeks.
You can purchase turkey feed which has been specifically balanced to meet a turkey’s nutritional needs, (which will have more protein than chicken feed), but they can also fare pretty well on a chicken diet. Plan on consumption rates of up to 100 lbs per bird.
Otherwise, care for turkeys is pretty similar to chickens, so similar in fact that many small farmers are tempted (or have successfully) kept chickens and turkeys together in the same coop or pasture.
The cost for raising a turkey depends on the breed and your desired finish weight. One U.S.-based small farmer determined that when accounting for the cost of a chick, brooding costs (electricity etc.), slaughter fees, and feed for a 12-pound conventional (non-heritage breed) turkey, the total comes to approximately $32 per bird.
This cost doesn’t take into account time and labour, and is based on U.S. pricing, but is still a good estimator. Please visit the website for a full breakdown of costs: www.namimoonfarms.com/news/the-price-of-a-turkey.
Turkeys and chickens — together?
There’s some debate over whether you should raise turkeys and chickens in the same pen, and while many small farmers have successfully raised turkey and chicken flocks together, there are some reasons to keep them separate. For the most part, chickens like to hang out with other chickens, and turkeys like to hang out with turkeys. Your coop is kind of like a high school cafeteria in that regard.
It’s not like keeping both chickens and turkeys in the same coop is impossible, so long as you take precautions to ensure both birds are having their nutritional needs met, have enough space, and there’s no bullying going on from the larger breeds.
Of course, there are other factors to consider, something James discovered firsthand. The dreaded blackhead is a disease that affects turkeys, chickens, and game birds. Caused by the protozoa histomonas meleagridis, blackhead is spread to birds by a roundworm, heterakis gallinarum. Poultry can then spread the disease through fecal matter or through bird-to-bird transmission.
Turkeys, especially young turkeys, are highly susceptible to blackhead. The disease can spread quickly within a flock and has a mortality rate of between 70 and 100 per cent. In chickens, blackhead disease can impact overall health, but chickens can carry the disease throughout their lifetime, and they can pass it on to turkeys.
James encountered blackhead during one of her first years raising turkeys and learned the hard way not to run turkeys on the same pasture as chickens. When her turkeys started getting sick and dying, she wasn’t sure what the problem could be. She hadn’t heard of blackhead disease, but once it caught her flock, there was nothing that could be done to stem the losses.
“I lost all my birds that year,” James said. “I sent some of the birds to the University of Guelph Kemptville Campus for diagnosis, and they told me it was blackhead disease. I haven’t run them on the same yard since.”
Whether or not to keep turkeys and chickens together is a choice each farmer must make for themselves.
Turkey lore
Did you know?
- A male turkey is called a tom; a female turkey is called a hen.
- The name “turkey” was given to the bird based on its resemblance to “turkey cocks” found in Turkey.
- Turkeys have two stomachs. Food first goes into the proventriculus that partially digests food using stomach acid before traveling to the gizzard.
- Turkeys have excellent vision and can see peripherally up to 270 degrees.
- Male turkeys can be aggressive and even dangerous when threatened.
— Amy Hogue