# Turkeys is as turkeys does
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkeys-is-as-turkeys-does/56923
**Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
**Created:** [March 6, 2001, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkeys-is-as-turkeys-does/56923 "2001-03-06T11:28:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 2
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@woolly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woolly)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2001, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkeys-is-as-turkeys-does/56923/1 "2001-03-06T11:28:39Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980306b.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a980306b.html)
In addition to being large, slow growing, less productive birds, there is another husbandry reason why you don’t see turkey eggs … turkey poults are probably the dumbest creatures on the farm (not including the people who grow them ;))
Two instances come to mind from a researcher whose trial was destroyed by the stupidity of the subjects.
Firstly at on stage during the trial, an empty 4 gallon feed bucket was left in the middle of the run while the researcher attended to a problem with either the fence or shed. One turkey decided to investigate and jumped into the drum. That was sufficient to invoke the interest of another that followed, then another, then another … In a couple of minutes the researcher returned to see a mound of turkeys about 10 feet high with the newest arrivals at the top trying to fight their way to the bottom to find whatever was so interesting. From the carnage about 1/3rd were lost due to suffocation and broken bodies.
Another time the poults were free in the yard when it started to rain. Never having seen a rain before they stood transfixed, looking up at the cloud with their mouths open. A significant proportion of the flock drowned.
I heard this first in the late 70s so getting a cite might be difficult. If I can find anything I’ll let you know.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2001, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/turkeys-is-as-turkeys-does/56923/2 "2001-03-06T14:05:10Z")
Hi! Amazingly enough, the Master has already addressed this.
[Are turkeys so stupid they will look up in the sky when it rains and drown?](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_010.html)
[http://www.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modpo/e1259006.html](http://www.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modpo/e1259006.html)
> [@](#):
>
> 1. Turkeys are very curious! Young turkeys have been known
> to drown in a half-filled pail of water-not just one bird,
> a bucket full of birds, one after the other!
>
> 2. Turkeys are not stupid, but they are different. It is
> important to have plenty of waterers and feeders available
> for them when they are a day old and first trying to find
> feed and water. They have been known to starve to death by
> eating nothing, or they eat litter instead of feed and
> then starve to death-with feed near by!
Turkeys are actually very intelligent birds who in the wild rely on being taught by older flock members (hens).
[http://ms.essortment.com/turkeywildamer\_raek.htm](http://ms.essortment.com/turkeywildamer_raek.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> Once born, the young leave the nest almost immediately. Females teach the young to forage for food during the first few days of life. By two weeks of age, young turkeys can provide food for themselves. At just a few months, they will be full-grown.
[http://www.go2pa.com/panwtf/turkeyprofile.html](http://www.go2pa.com/panwtf/turkeyprofile.html)
> [@](#):
>
> Poults—Young turkeys are called poults. They’re covered with a fine, brownish fuzz and even at hatching have a wild turkey’s distinctive long neck and legs. Easy game for predators, their main defense is to hide. They scatter and freeze at the hen’s warning call, remaining motionless until she sounds the all-clear. A hen may feign injury to lure intruders away from her young.
>
> Poults need high-protein food, and the hen soon leads them to open areas where insects abounds. Poults eat leafhoppers, crickets, other insects and larvae, tender greens and fruits. The hen broods them nightly for at least two weeks, until their wings develop and they can roost in trees. When poults are about three weeks old, several family groups may merge to form a flock of hens and poults.
>
> Six-week-old poults are fairly strong fliers, and by autumn they’re practically self-sufficient. Birds of the year can be identified by their middle tail feathers, which are longer than the others. In adults, the edge of the fanned tail forms an unbroken curved line.
>
> In autumn, flocks often contain several old hens and their young, and occasionally hens that have not raised broods, for a total of 40 or more birds.
In this they are similar to sandhill and whooping cranes–perhaps you’ve seen the nature films of crane chicks being fed by humans in crane costumes? This is not only to prevent their imprinting on humans, but also because they depend on having adult birds teach them what to eat.
[http://www.audubononline.net/martincofl/newsletter.htm](http://www.audubononline.net/martincofl/newsletter.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> The cranes, which nest on slightly elevated islands in herbaceous wetlands, need adjacent foraging lands where they can teach their offspring how to “be cranes”…Unlike many other adult birds that can fly-off to find prey and bring it back to their young, sandhill cranes teach their young first-hand what to eat and where to find it.
When such an authority figure is missing in the lives of the little turkey poults, i.e. mass production of turkeys on a turkey ranch in Arkansas, they tend to behave in a way that humans would categorize as “stupid”. They refuse to eat, they stand out in the rain, and they crush each other in a corner of the pen or in a bucket. However, they aren’t doing this because they’re stupid–they’re doing this because they’re hard-wired to have somebody teach them _not_ to do it, and it’s just too bad for them that they’re growing up on a turkey ranch instead of in the woods.