TURKEYS
The turkey is commonly considered the best of birds for the table, the
most desirable for any festive occasion, and quite indispensable on
Thanksgiving Day. It is the largest bird grown for its flesh. As usually
found in the markets, geese and turkeys are of about the same weight,
because most people, when buying a large bird for the table, want those
that, when dressed, weigh about ten or twelve pounds; but the largest
turkeys are considerably heavier than the largest geese, and the
proportion of extra large birds is much greater among turkeys.
=Description.= A dressed turkey and a dressed fowl are quite strikingly
alike in shape. The most noticeable difference is in the breast, which
is usually deeper and fuller in a turkey. The living birds are
distinctly unlike in appearance, the carriage of the body and the
character and expression of the head of the turkey being very different
from those of the fowl. The head and upper part of the neck are bare,
with a few bristly hairs. The bare skin is a little loose on the head
and very much looser on the neck, forming many small folds, some of
which are sac-like. It varies in color from a livid bluish-gray to
brilliant scarlet. An elongated, trunklike extension of the skin at the
juncture of the beak with the head takes the place of the comb in the
fowl. There is a single wattle under the throat, not pendent from the
jaw, as in the fowl, but attached to the skin of the neck. The feathers
on the lower part of the neck are short, and the plumage of the whole
body is closer and harder than that of most fowls. The wings are large.
The tail spreads vertically and is usually carried in a drooping
position. This, with the shortness of the feathers of the neck, makes
the back of the turkey convex. The usual gait of the bird is a very
deliberate walk.
The male and female differ conspicuously in so many points that the sex
of an adult bird is distinguished without difficulty. As a rule the
males are much larger than the females of the same stock. In colored
varieties the males are more strongly pigmented, and the shades of color
in them are more pronounced. The head characters of the male are much
more prominent in size and more brilliant in color. Both sexes have the
power of inflating the loose appendages of the head and neck. In the
male this is highly developed; in the female only perceptible. The male
has a brushlike tuft of coarse hair growing from the upper part of the
breast. This tuft, called the beard, is black in all varieties. The
female is usually shy and has a low, plaintive call. The male challenges
attention and often struts about with his tail elevated and spread in a
circle like a fan, wings trailing on the ground, the feathers all over
the body erected until he looks twice his natural size, and at frequent
intervals vociferously uttering his peculiar "gobble-gobble-gobble." The
male turkey has short spurs like those of the male fowl.
The name _turkey_ was erroneously given in England when the birds were
first known there and it was supposed that they came from Turkey. The
adult male is called a _turkey cock_, also a _tom-turkey_ (sometimes
simply _tom_) and a _gobbler_. The adult female is called a _turkey
hen_, or a _hen turkey_, the order of the terms being immaterial. Young
turkeys before the sex can be distinguished are variously called _young
turkeys_, _turkey chicks_, and _poults_, the latter being considered by
poultrymen the proper technical name. After the sex can be
distinguished, the terms _cockerel_ and _pullet_ are applied to turkeys
in the same way as to fowls.
=Origin.= The turkey is a native of North America. Although not as
widely distributed as before the country was settled, it is still found
wild in many places. It was domesticated in Mexico and Central America
long before the discovery of the New World. Domesticated stock from
these places was taken to Spain and England early in the sixteenth
century, and was soon spread all over Europe. The domestic stock of the
colonists in the United States and Canada came from Europe with the
other kinds of domestic poultry. It is probable that from early colonial
times the domestic stock was occasionally crossed by wild stock, but we
have no information about such crosses until after the Revolutionary
War. From the earliest published statements in regard to the matter it
would appear that such crosses had long been common, and that the
benefits of vigorous wild blood were appreciated by the farmers of that
time. The wild turkey is about as large as a medium-sized domestic
turkey but, being very close-feathered, looks smaller. It is nearly
black, and the bare head and neck are darker in color than in most
domestic birds.
[Illustration: Fig. 154. Common turkeys on a New England farm]
=Common turkeys.= The turkey is not so well adapted to domestication as
the fowl, duck, and goose. Under the conditions to which they have
usually been subjected domestic turkeys have lost much of the vigor of
the wild stock. As far as is known, the birds taken to Europe after the
discovery of America were black or nearly black. In Europe white sports
appeared and were preserved, and the colors became mixed--black, white,
gray of various shades, brown, and buff. That has been the character of
most flocks in this country until quite recent times, and many such
flocks are still found.
=Improved varieties.= The development of the domestic turkey is unique
in that the most marked improvement in domestic stocks has been due to
extensive introductions of the blood of the wild race. The reason for
this is indicated in the statement in the preceding paragraph, in regard
to the lack of adaptation of the turkey to the ordinary conditions of
life in domestication. The turkey deteriorates where the other kinds of
poultry mentioned would improve. So, while in Europe a few color
varieties were made, and in some localities both there and in America
local breeds of special merit arose, on the whole the domestic stocks
were degenerate. The distinct color varieties were the Black, the White,
and the Gray, but by no means all turkeys of these colors were well-bred
birds. The color varieties were crudely made by the preference of
breeders in a certain locality for a particular color. They were impure
and often produced specimens of other colors because of the occasional
use of breeding birds unlike the flock. In early times it was the almost
universal opinion that crossbred stock had more vitality than pure-bred
stock. Hence farmers, although preferring a certain type of animal,
would often make an outcross to an entirely different type, and then by
selection go back to the type of their preference. When this mode of
breeding is adopted, undesirable colors may appear for many years after
a bird of a foreign variety has been used in breeding.
The local European breeds that gained a wide reputation were the Black
Norfolk, the Cambridgeshire Bronze, and the White Holland. Black and
White turkeys were perhaps quite as popular and as well established in
other places as in those mentioned. Black turkeys were the most common
kind in Spain and in some parts of France. In some other parts of
France, and in parts of Germany and Austria, White turkeys were the most
numerous, but in general the turkeys of Europe and America were of
various colors, with gray predominating.
In the United States a local breed of very good quality was developed in
Rhode Island about the middle of the last century. It appears to have
been known at first as the Point Judith Bronze Turkey, and also as the
Narragansett Turkey, but the first name was soon dropped and has long
been forgotten by all but those familiar with the early literature. The
Narragansett Turkey was not bronze as the term is now applied to
turkeys; it was a dark, brownish-gray, which is doubtless the reason why
the name was changed after the distinctly bronze turkeys became well
known. Although the Narragansett Turkey is described in the American
Standard, and prizes are still offered for it at some shows, the type
has almost disappeared.
=Bronze turkeys.= The accidental crossing of wild with tame turkeys
produced, in the domestic flocks where such crosses occurred, many
specimens of exceptional size and vigor, in which the blending of the
colors of the wild turkey with the gray of the domestic birds gave rise
to a very beautiful type of coloration. It was neither black nor brown
nor gray, but contained all these shades and had an iridescent bronze
sheen. As the crosses which produced these were only occasional, the
wild blood being reduced in each generation removed from it, the bronze
type was usually soon merged with and lost in the common type. As the
wild birds became scarce, crosses were rare, and what improvement had
been accidentally made was in danger of being lost, when the awakening
of interest in all kinds of poultry stirred turkey growers to more
systematic efforts for the improvement of domestic stock by crossing
with the wild stock. Those who were able to do so captured wild birds
and bred them in captivity, producing both pure wild and half-wild
stock. They also secured the eggs of wild birds and hatched and reared
the young with tame hens. With wild stock under control, they were able
to use as much wild blood as they desired in their flocks, and soon
fixed and improved the bronze type until they had a variety of turkeys
that were extremely hardy, larger than the wild race or any domestic
stock that had hitherto been produced, and also more attractive in
color. The name "Bronze" was soon applied exclusively to this type of
turkey in America. In England they are called American Bronze, to
distinguish them from the Cambridge Bronze, which seems to be very
nearly a duplicate of the Narragansett.
[Illustration: Fig. 155. White Holland Turkey cock. (Photograph by E. J.
Hall)]
The evolution of the Bronze Turkey in America is one of the most
interesting things in poultry culture. The work was done on a very large
scale. It was not just a few breeders that engaged in grading up
domestic turkeys with wild blood, but a great many scattered all over
the country. Many, remote from places where wild turkeys ranged, paid
high prices for full-blooded wild males, and also for grades with a
large proportion of wild blood. In this way the wild blood was very
widely distributed. As the superiority of the bronze type became
established, turkey growers everywhere bought Bronze males to head their
flocks, and so in a remarkably short time Bronze Turkeys of a type much
superior to the old domestic stock became the common turkeys in many
districts.
[Illustration: Fig. 156. Flock of White Holland Turkeys]
Interest in the American Bronze Turkey arose in England at a very early
stage of this development. In fact, there is some reason to believe that
the publicity given to several early shipments of small lots of wild
turkeys to France and England did more than anything else to direct the
attention of breeders in this country to the value of systematic
breeding to fix the characters which wild blood introduced. The most
celebrated of these shipments was one taken to France by Lafayette on
his return from his last visit to the United States in 1825. About this
time, or earlier, an English nobleman, who had some American wild
turkeys, presented his sovereign with a very fine horse. The king,
instead of expressing pleasure with the gift, intimated that he would
prefer some of the wild turkeys, and was accordingly presented with a
pair. The use of wild blood to give greater vigor to domestic stock
continues, though it gives no better results now than the use of
vigorous Bronze Turkeys many generations removed from wild ancestry.
[Illustration: Fig. 157. Bronze Turkey cock. (Photograph by E. J. Hall)]
=Influence of the Bronze Turkey on other varieties.= Although White
turkeys have long been very popular in some parts of Europe, in this
country they were, until recently, considered too weak to be desirable
for any but those who kept them as a hobby. By chance mixtures of Bronze
and White turkeys, and in some instances by systematic breeding, white
turkeys that were large and vigorous were produced. Some of these were
large enough to be called mammoths, as the largest Bronze Turkeys were.
A few breeders who had these big white turkeys advertised them as
Mammoth White Turkeys produced by Mammoth Bronze Turkeys as sports and
in no way related to the old, weakly white birds. But whatever may have
been the case at the outset, in a few years the Mammoth Whites were so
mixed with others that the distinction was lost, for the best buyers of
superior white turkeys were those who liked the color and had inferior
stock which they wished to improve. All white turkeys in America now go
by the old name, "White Holland Turkeys."
Yellow or buff turkeys were often seen among the old common turkeys.
They were usually small and very poor in color. The mixture of bronze
turkeys with these birds occasionally produced larger birds of a
darker, more reddish buff but very uneven in color, with the tail and
wings nearly white. From such birds, by careful breeding, a dark red
race with white wings and tail was made. This variety is called the
Bourbon Red, from Bourbon County, Kentucky, where it originated.
=Other varieties of the turkey.= The only other variety worthy of
mention here is the Slate Turkey. Birds of this color are often seen in
mixed flocks. Some of very good size and color have been bred for
exhibition, and the Slate Turkey in America is classed as a distinct
variety.
[Illustration: Fig. 158. Bourbon Red Turkeys. (Photograph from owner,
C. W. Jones, Holmdel, New Jersey)]
=Place of the turkey in domestication.= In discussing the history of the
turkey in domestication much has been said of the influence of
conditions on the type and on the vitality of this bird. The case of the
turkey is peculiar, because it seems as capable of being tamed as the
fowl, the goose, or the duck, yet does not thrive under the conditions
in which it would grow tame. It is peculiarly sensitive to the effects
of soil which has been contaminated by the excrement of animals, and so
instinctively avoids feeding places on which other animals are numerous.
Thus it requires a large range and, if permitted to follow its
inclination, spends most of its time at a distance from the homestead.
The successful growing of turkeys depends upon the watchfulness of the
caretaker and the absence of their natural enemies. This will appear
more clearly when the methods of managing them are described in the next
chapter. Turkey culture is not well adapted to the more intensive
methods of farming which become necessary after the first fertility of
the land has been exhausted. Hence the turkey has almost disappeared
from many places where turkey growing was once an industry of
considerable importance. The farms of the Central West and the mountain
regions of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee have for
many years produced most of the turkeys consumed in this country, but
the changing conditions in these regions seem unfavorable to the
increase of turkey culture. Attempts to grow turkeys on a large scale
have been made on the Pacific coast. While these may succeed for a time,
turkey culture in this country is likely to decline rapidly unless
changes in economic conditions afford cheaper labor on farms, or unless
the natural enemies of poultry are so reduced that flocks of turkeys may
be kept in a half-wild state.