Animals | The Turkey
Introduction
Let’s have a conversation about turkeys.
With Thanksgiving coming up, at least 45,000,000 turkeys have been beheaded, de-feathered, and bagged up for consumption. That’s just for Thanksgiving. These turkeys have only been permitted to live for a small fraction of their lifespan before they were
Turkey Facts
Turkeys Live Long Lives
In the wild, turkeys live to be about seven years ol. In some areas, they reach ages surpassing ten, with the highest age recorded for a turkey being fifteen! Farmed turkeys, however, are typically killed between four and five months of age. This is roughly the age equivalence of a human three-year-old, assuming that humans live to be around 80 years old.
Turkeys Are Smart
I’m going to preface this by acknowledging something we all know: farmed turkeys have severe genetic disorders that make them appear less intelligent tha their wild counterparts. Farm turkeys were selectively bred to be as easily-managed as possible for farmers. Humans are responsible for the neck spasms which lead to turkeys appearing to stare at the sky for prolonged periods of time, which is the primary reason behind the notion that turkeys are dumb.
However, turkeys are quite intelligent. They form social bonds, they have memories, and they communicate with one another in unique ways. They also have a wide range of emotions, which brings us to my third fact.
Turkeys Have Emotions… and They Express Them
Turkeys, like most non-human animals, experience emotions. In addition to joy, turkeys experience pain, fear, and stress. For farmed turkeys, these emotions are the bulk of what they’ll experience during their four-to-five month-long life. Turkeys, like chickens, also experience empathy. When your turkey was killed, it didn’t go down with a song in its heart, or without any emotion at all; it experienced the same things you would have: fear, anxiety, stress, and pain.
Turkeys actually express their emotions with the color of their necks and heads. The mood of a turkey alters the color of its skin, ranging from red to white to blue. This depends on the turkey’s level of stress, calmness, or excitement.
Conclusion
Turkeys are outstanding creatures. They form family units, they express their emotions through an array of colors, and they can live long, healthy lives if they aren’t killed shortly after their birth. Nearly 300,000,000 turkeys are killed for consumption each year. Roughly 15% of those deaths occur for Thanksgiving alone. Before you put flesh on your plate, this Thanksgiving, consider who the flesh belonged to. If you’re looking for a death alternative, I highly recommend the Trader Joe’s tofurky roast. Gardein’s is excellent, as well.