3) Turkeys make shy, but sometimes affectionate petsĪ turkey named Opal at Poplar Springs Animal Sanctuary in Maryland in 2009. But wild turkeys can fly at up to 55 miles per hour. By contrast, wild turkeys tend to top out at around 20 pounds or so.Ĭommercial turkeys are so big that they generally can't get off the ground. And today, the most popular turkey breed, the broad breasted white, grows super fast and can easily get to more than 45 pounds. In the 20th century, turkey producers began seriously breeding commercial turkeys to become more efficient at converting feed into breast meat. So wild and domestic birds have been apart for a long time, and that's led to some differences. And then Europeans took the domestic turkey back to America in the 1500s or 1600s. They were brought to Europe around 1519, where they acquired their name. (Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)ĭomesticated turkeys were likely first separated from wild turkeys in the pre-Columbian era in Mexico. (This was presumably of interest to the USDA because you'd want to maximize the amount of turkey eggs becoming actual turkeys that you can then sell for people to eat.) 2) Domesticated turkeys are nothing like wild turkeys MW Olson, a USDA researcher who studied parthenogenesis in a particular breed of turkey in the mid-20th century, found that about 1 percent of them survived until chick-hood.īut Olson also said that he was able to selectively breed these turkeys to increase that rate to about 8 percent. Very few of the embryos produced from this process survive long enough to become baby turkeys. This process is called parthenogenesis and has also been recorded in many other types of animals, including bees, lizards, and sharks. Occasionally, the eggs of female turkeys will - without any sperm involved - spontaneously develop into embryos and then into baby turkeys (which are always males). So what else is there to say about turkeys that must be said? These three things: 1) Female turkeys can basically clone themselves And they are, obviously, delicious (although maybe not as delicious as Momofuku pork shoulder). Our president pardons them in a fancy ceremony. These birds share their name with a foreign nation for some obscure and interesting reasons. Americans eat, produce, and export more turkeys than anyone else on Earth.
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