Ode to the turkey

link Staff photo: Tony Bullocks

As you enjoy your Thanksgiving meal, please take a moment to think kind thoughts about the guest of honor at most of our tables:

• Turkeys were first domesticated by the Aztecs in Mexico. Fossils show turkeys roamed Texas 2.5 million years ago.

Source: Oklahoma State 4-H

• Tom Savage, a poultry scientist and animal science professor at Oregon State University, observed that if you throw an apple to a group of turkeys, they will play with it together, almost as though it were a football.

Source: http://www.farmsanctuary.org

• Americans on average eat 16.4 pounds of turkey each year — nearly twice as much as they ate 25 years ago.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com

• Turkeys can run up to 25 mph. And they can swim when necessary.

Source: Compassion in World Farming

• Turkeys exhibit more than 20 distinctive vocalizations, including a distinctive gobble produced by males, that can be heard a mile away.

Source: http://www.onekind.org

• Turkeys have between 5,000 and 6,00 feathers.

Source: http://www.onekind.org

• Despite what you may have learned watching “WKRP in Cincinnati,” turkeys can fly — at a clip of 50 mph in short bursts.

Source: http://www.livescience.com

• Do you know what you get when you cross a turkey with a banjo? A turkey that can pluck itself.

Source: http://www.jokes4us.com

• Ben Franklin, in a letter to his daughter, had this to say about the turkey:

“The turkey is ... a true original native of America. He is besides, though a little vain and silly, a bird of courage, and would not hesitate to attack a grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his farm yard with a red coat on.”

Source: smithsonianmag.com