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By T. F. McGrew.
The present-day turkeys are all grouped in one breed, but represent a number of varieties. The origin of the present domestic turkey was undoubtedly in what is known as the North American turkey, which existed in a wild state over the greater part of North America from the Carolinas well up into Canada. Records show that turkeys were grown or domesticated in England as early as 1541. They were reasonably plentiful in 1573 throughout the agricultural districts of England. Some writers think that the first ones were taken from the West India islands into Europe.
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Wild turkeys. (Fig. 602.)
There are three distinct "originals" or wild turkeys, one known as the North American, one the Mexican, and the third, the most delicate of all, the Honduras or Ocellated turkey.
The American "original" or wild turkey, the one that frequented the United States north of Carolina and into Canada, is designated as Meleagris Americana. The color of this type is black, shaded with a rich bronze; the breast plumage is very brilliant, tinged with a finish of coppery gold inflection. In the rays of the sun the combination of bronze with the copper and gold glistens like burnished metal. From this wild original, crossed with the domestic Black turkey, which was undoubtedly brought by the early settlers from England, was created the well-known variety of Bronze turkeys.
[Fig. 602. Wild turkey.]
The Mexican wild turkey (Meleagris Mexicana) is of shorter build than the northern turkey. The color is very much the same, but even more brilliant in shading than the North American variety, with the distinction that the tail and other feathers are tipped with white. This species seems to have been the first introduced into Spain and other countries. It is thought that the white markings of this variety had an influence in creating what is known as the Narragansett turkey.
Hondurus turkey.--The wild species known as the Honduras turkey (Meleagris ocellata), the original breed of Honduras and Central America, is described as the most beautifully colored of all the turkey family. The head and neck of this wild variety are naked. No breast tuft is found thereon. The caruncles of the head and neck differ somewhat from those of other turkeys. The plumage color is described as a beautiful bronze-green, banded with golden bronze-blue and red, with some bands of brilliant black. This variety has never been domesticated successfully. The few that have been kept in confinement have failed to produce of
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their kind, and live but a short time out of their own natural realm. They are of what might be termed a low carriage, the breast rather drooping, the tail usually carried in a downward or low position.
Crested turkey.--A distinctive domestic variety is the crested turkey. This has a crest or topknot of feathers on the head, or rather just back of the head on the neck. This type cannot be classed as an original variety.
Common domestic varieties of turkeys.
The domestic varieties of turkeys, as known to this country, are the Bronze (Fig. 603), Narraganset, Buff, Slate, White (Fig. 604) and Black. The Bronze, as originated in the United States by crossing the wild variety with the Black turkey, known in England as the Norfolk. It is the largest, hardiest and most admired of all varieties of turkeys for the market. The Narragansett turkey undoubtedly had somewhat of the same original blood as the bronze, influenced, perhaps, by a cross of the variety from Mexico, which gave a mixture of white in the bronze and black plumage of this variety. It is second in size only to the Bronze, and has been most favorably considered in many parts of New England. The Buff turkey should have true buff plumage throughout. As usually seen, the feathers are of a reddish buff, the wing flights, and at times other feathers of the wing, being white. The Bourbon Red, which is undoubtedly a kindred variety of the Buff, that originated in Kentucky, perhaps, is of deep reddish buff in plumage, and somwhat larger than the Buff variety. It is thought to have been created through a mixture of the wild and the Buff varieties. The Slate turkey might be called a blue variety, the plumage color being of a bluish, slaty shade. The White variety is pure white in plumage throughout, and has pinkish white shanks. The Black variety is pure black throughout the entire plumage. As we now see it, it has undoubtedly been crossed with the Bronze variety to improve its size, and this cross has illuminated the plumage somewhat with coppery shading.
[Fig. 603. Bronze turkey.]
Turkey-raising.
Considerable attention has been given to the raising of turkeys for market throughout the world. The early tendency to neglect the constitutional requirements and permit constant inbreeding without the intermingling of new blood reduced the vitality and permitted a disease to creep in,
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known as black-head, which can be obliterated only through care in selecting the most vigorous specimens and introducing them as new blood into the flocks.
Turkeys seem to adapt themselves to diverse climatic conditions. They do equally well far north into Canada and south into Texas. The climate both of New England and of California seems fitted for the growing of large numbers of them for market purposes. Locality does not seem to influence their cultivation, provided the parent is strong and healthy and the young are protected from the cold, damp and insect vermin, all of which may be considered most direful enemies of young turkeys.
[Fig. 604. White Holland turkey.]
Being of a rather semi-wild nature, they do best when permitted to have their freedom and range with their young over an extended area. Where the natural food on the range is unbounded, they prosper best.
These fowls do not seem to do so well in confinement as other poultry, being more like the guinea-fowl. They become nervous and restless when confined in limited quarters. A few of them may be handled successfully in enclosures, as are poultry. Under such conditions they will not grow so large nor prosper so well as they will in freedom. The turkey hen lays thirty-five to forty eggs in a season. It takes twenty-eight days for the eggs to hatch. The young turkeys feed themselves as soon as they come from the nest. "Little and often" is the rule for feeding the young turkey for the first few days after coming from the shell. [See article on Feeding Poultry.]
Turkeys for breeding purposes should be strong, vigorous, healthy, well matured and not akin. Constitutional vigor is of first importance in the male or tom, as it is called. A medium-sized male with good fair-sized females of strong constitutional vigor and mature age will give best results. The best rule for mating is to have four or five females to one male, although greater numbers of females have been used with good results.
Literature.
T. F. McGrew, Turkeys; Standard Varieties and Management, Farmers' Bulletin No. 200, United States Department of Agriculture (1904); J. F. Crangle and others, Turkey Culture; Herbert Myrick, Turkeys: How to Grow Them; Turkeys: Their Care and Management, Reliable Poultry Journal, Quincy, Ill. [For further references, see page 527.]
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