- Toms and hens are raised separately. A turkey grower will raise one or the other.
- Only toms gobble. Hens make a clicking sound.
- A hen can lay 90-110 eggs in their 25-week production cycle. One tom can father as many as 1,500 poults (newly hatched turkeys) during a 6-month production cycle.
- Turkeys are raised in large, open buildings that keep the turkeys comfortable. This protects the turkeys from predators such as coyotes or hawks, disease and weather extremes while providing them a large area to move and interact with other turkeys.
- Hormones are never used to raise turkeys. It is illegal. Hormone use for any turkey production was banned in the 1950s!
- Feeling drowsy after eating Thanksgiving dinner? A recent study showed that carbohydrate rich, not turkey-protein rich, meals increase levels of tryptophan in the brain which creates drowsiness.
- Turkey sandwiches account for 48% of all turkey consumption.
- In a turkey's lifetime, it will consume approximately one bushel of corn and 1/3 bushel of soybeans.
- Turkey barns have wood shavings and or oat hulls on the floors. Turkey manure is naturally deposited into the wood shavings to make an organic, nutrient rich fertilizer that is distributed on farm fields and residential lawns.
- Fossils have been found from 10 million years ago...turkeys were around even then!
- Turkeys were domesticated beginning in the 16th century. There were seven varieties of wild turkeys in America when Europeans first arrived and all seven still exist in the wild today.
- It’s estimated that turkeys have approximately 3500 feathers at maturity.
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