As students gather with friends and family Thursday to start their Thanksgiving dinners, many of their table will feature the staple entree so symbolic of the holiday: the turkey.
Oven roasted to a golden brown, smoked to a hickory perfection, deep fried until its crispy on the outside, moist in the center; there are a lot of ways to eat it.
But this big bird, which came close to beating out the Bald Eagle as our national symbol, is more than just a meal.
In the wild, it’s an agile and aggressive animal.
At least that’s what Jesse Grimes says.
As a professor of poultry science, he’s the University’s foremost expert on turkeys.
The turkey uses parts of it’s body to defend against predators and help it during mating season. Spurs, located at the ankles of a male turkey, are long pieces of bone used to fight off predators and other males during mating season, according to Grimes.
Grimes said turkeys display aggressive behavior when it comes to breeding.
“They jump up and claw each other with their feet,” Grimes said. “At this point, [the spurs] are used as a weapon.”
Male turkeys, or toms, have big, bright tail feathers to attract the female turkeys, or hens. Toms strut in front of the hens, protruding their chest and displaying their set of feathers to earn the right to mate. Their “gobble” makes a noise that also helps to attract hens, according to Grimes.
In the spring, during mating season, a group of hens congregate to a tom turkey as he works to catch their attention. The tom turkey mates with as many hens as possible and then leaves the females to raise the young on their own. The tom sometimes goes to another group of hens to mate, according to Grimes.
The hen lays a “clutch” of about 8 to 12 eggs in a nest she creates herself on the ground. Similar to a chicken, she sits on the eggs to incubate them. A hen usually lays only one brood per year, unless a nest gets destroys, according to Grimes.
Once the poults, or baby turkeys, hatch from their eggs, the hen leaves the nest and calls them to her. The poults are covered with “dine,” little patches of feathers, according to Grimes.
Poults are most susceptible to death in their first three days of life, according to Grimes. They must avoid cold, wet weather during this critical time. For the first few days they eat nothing but insects to add a substantial amount of protein to their diet.
However, even before the eggs hatch, poults are still vulnerable to other animal predators. Raccoons, possums, snakes and skunks raid turkey nests, according to Grimes. Other animals, such as foxes, coyotes, bobcats and hawks can attack a hen.
“A lot of things eat turkey, not just people,” Grimes said.
A typical turkey’s lifespan is about one to two years, according to Grimes.
Turkeys can use their gift of flight as one way to escape predators. A turkey can fly as high as the tree tops at a speed of 50 miles per hour, according to Grimes. However, turkeys can only maintain any speed of flight for a short distance. Despite their powerful wings, turkeys are still too heavy to stay in flight for long periods of time.
Turkeys usually fly on the branches of trees to roost, or sleep, at night, according to Grimes. Turkeys also develop their wings before starting to fly.
“A poult begins to fly at 3 to 4 weeks old,” Grimes said.
A short tail located on the rear of a turkey helps it keep balance during flight, according to Grimes. The tail creates a strong base for the feathers to sit on, which is useful during flight.
Turkeys provide natural protection for their feathers as well.
“They preen with oil from a gland,” said Grimes. The gland, called the uropygial, is located on the base of the tail and provides a waterproof-like protection for the feathers.
In the wild, turkeys depend more on their legs for transportation than their wings. Since a turkey’s legs are heavily used, more oxygen is required for strength. Myglobin and hemoglobin cells hold oxygen and are heavily concentrated in the legs, creating a darker color.
Since the chest of a turkey, the area responsible for much of the muscles used during flight, require less oxygen, the muscles have a lower amount of oxygen cells, creating a white color.
“Turkeys are not bred to have white meat, but by the way nature made it,” Grimes said.
Other parts of the turkey’s body provide temperature control.
The snood and wattle, a fleshy growth on male turkeys’ heads hanging over their beaks, are used as a secondary sex characteristic and control heat loss, according to Grimes.
Snoods are also found on females.
“It can contract or extend in length,” Grimes said. “Blood can go there to gain heat.”
Turkeys also pant when they get hot, similar to dogs, according to Grimes.
“They open their mouths,” Grimes said. This allows the hot moisture in the lungs to escape and radiate heat from the turkey’s body.
In the fall, when it begins to get cold, the several family groups in a region flock together to remain close during the winter months.
“It’s safety in numbers,” Grimes said.
If a predator approaches a flock, the turkeys can scatter and confuse predators, who won’t know which one to capture, explained Grimes.
Turkeys typically stay in one area, unlike other birds that travel far distances for the changing of the seasons, according to Grimes.
The typical habitat of a turkey is an unbroken forest, characterized by heavily wooded land typically found in the Southeast and Eastern part of the United States.
However, turkeys do “quite well on farmland,” Grimes said.
“They are adaptable to farmland and suburban areas,” Grimes said.
All turkeys need to survive is shelter, water and open space. They eat everything from acorns to vegetables and insects, Grimes said.
Once a turkey swallows food, since it has no teeth to chew, the food enters the crop after passing through the esophagus. The crop acts like a storage bowl where a substantial amount of food can stay prior to being digested. The crop is used so the turkey can go to an area where it might be vulnerable to predators, eat the maximum amount to fit inside the crop and return to safe cover.
Wild tom turkeys can weigh up to 20 pounds, while a hen weighs about 10 to 12 pounds, according to Grimes.
He said the turkey’s fat distribution makes the bird a healthier choice to eat over other meat sources, such as pork or beef. Instead of being deposited in the muscle fiber, fat is stored under the turkey’s skin and abdominal cavity.
“Nature put the bird together,” Grimes said.
Turkeys themselves have been a “historical food for us,” according to Grimes.
“It’s very American,” Grimes said. “Turkeys connect us to our past.”