Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radios, How Stuff Works, Gobble Gobble, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry Jero Roland. Couldn't come up with anything
Speaker 1: in the last second, that's all right, and this is
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know about turkeys. Yeah, so I need
Speaker 1: to just apologize at the beginning of this episode because
Speaker 1: I could not help and I know I will not
Speaker 1: be able to help myself from making Vernon Florida references
Speaker 1: the Great Great documentary from Errol Morris, one of the
Speaker 1: prominent about the citizens of Vernon, Florida in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties and Inland, Florida, panhandled small town and one of
Speaker 1: the lead characters and in that documentary was Mr Henry Ships.
Speaker 1: He was a turkey hunter and all he does is
Speaker 1: talk about turkey hunting. And I know it by heart,
Speaker 1: me and all my friends know it by heart, and
Speaker 1: we quoted a lot. So it's really really hard not
Speaker 1: to just talk like Henry Ships. So I'll try not
Speaker 1: to because it's so random that the people it won't
Speaker 1: be worth it for like the hundred people that will
Speaker 1: think that's the best thing ever. I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: I've found over the years that it's good to cater
Speaker 1: those people sometimes too. You know, I might throw in
Speaker 1: an occasionally and I'll explain what I'm talking about maybe,
Speaker 1: But um, we do need to thank the Humane Society
Speaker 1: for what The bulk of this research came from this
Speaker 1: really great, great, great article that someone nameless person that
Speaker 1: the Humane Society put together from a list of great,
Speaker 1: great sources. So I was surprised to see something so thorough.
Speaker 1: It was really great. It was written by the mysterious
Speaker 1: Tom t It was really in favor of turkeys suspiciously.
Speaker 1: And now I'm Thanksgiving day two, So we also need
Speaker 1: to apologize for We're not trying to guilt you or
Speaker 1: anything like that. Maybe to listen to this one for
Speaker 1: a week, I will say the chuck like, I'm not
Speaker 1: eating turkey anymore after this. And it's really kind of
Speaker 1: a pain because turkey is my favorite. My favorite meat
Speaker 1: of all time is turkey. I know, I'm sorry. Then, Uh,
Speaker 1: it is tough. I knew turkeys were pretty cool and
Speaker 1: pretty smart, um, but it's it is. It is tough
Speaker 1: to read this stuff and still slice into that bird. Well,
Speaker 1: it's funny to hear that they are smart, because they
Speaker 1: have such a great reputation for being just totally stupid.
Speaker 1: But it turns out that that's really not right at all.
Speaker 1: It's at at best a human misinterpretation, maybe at worst
Speaker 1: cynical um justification for eating them. Um. But one of
Speaker 1: the first things that will remark about turkeys right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, that a lot of people don't know
Speaker 1: is that Ben Franklin was more in favor of turkeys
Speaker 1: as America's national emblem as far as birds go, than
Speaker 1: he was the bald eagle. He had a big problem
Speaker 1: with the fact that um eagles don't necessarily hunt as
Speaker 1: much as bully other birds for whatever they just hunted. Um.
Speaker 1: He said that the eagle does not get his living honestly,
Speaker 1: he steals from the fishawk and it's too lazy to
Speaker 1: fish for himself. The turkey, however, is much more respectable
Speaker 1: a true original native, and a turkey would not hesitate
Speaker 1: to attack a grenadier of the British Guard who should
Speaker 1: presume to invade his farmyard. And after researching turkeys, um,
Speaker 1: I daresay he was probably right about that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: the other thing that I'm surprised he didn't mention was
Speaker 1: and also by the way, male turkeys during the breeding season,
Speaker 1: literally their head and neck turns red white and blue. Yes,
Speaker 1: I noticed that too, Like that is so obvious, such
Speaker 1: an obvious pick. Like at one point during the year,
Speaker 1: you've got a red white and blue bird. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: let's see a bald eagle do so. The other thing,
Speaker 1: the other reason why um, And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people think that Franklin said that that that that
Speaker 1: needed to be like the Great Seal of the United States,
Speaker 1: and that's not the case. He instead, i think, proposed
Speaker 1: Moses is the Great Seal um, which is odd. But
Speaker 1: another check in Ben Franklin's pro turkey stance is that
Speaker 1: turkeys are indigenous to North America and there's actually we're
Speaker 1: down to two species. UM. One the common turkey, which
Speaker 1: is the kind that you or I or anybody else
Speaker 1: living uh north of Mexico are familiar with. UM. They're
Speaker 1: all over the place. They're all over the United States
Speaker 1: and Canada. UM. But the weird thing is there's also
Speaker 1: turkeys in Central and South America, and it turns out
Speaker 1: that there are really hardy, adaptable species, and again way
Speaker 1: smarter than than you probably give them credit for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean turkeys they do like warm weather, but there
Speaker 1: they can survive in a lot. Like you said, I
Speaker 1: remember very distinctly when I lived in New Jersey one uh,
Speaker 1: snowy morning looking into my backyard and there were it
Speaker 1: was like a painting or something. There were three deer
Speaker 1: in six wild turkey just walking together through the snow
Speaker 1: in the backyard. And Um, I didn't know that they
Speaker 1: would venture that far north, but they're all over the place.
Speaker 1: Um they are. Uh did you say the name of
Speaker 1: the ones in Mexico? The oscillated turkeys in the Yucatan
Speaker 1: Peninsula and Guatemala and Belize. They are different looking than
Speaker 1: the turkeys we know. They're smaller, a little shorter, they
Speaker 1: have sort of a copper bronze copper bronze green plumage.
Speaker 1: And I think the male turkeys have larger spurs and
Speaker 1: do not have beards. And will explain what all that
Speaker 1: is in a minute. Yeah, So if you're talking, if
Speaker 1: you're talking turkey, specifically male turkey, another term former gobblers
Speaker 1: or tom's for young young males, they're called Jake's. Love
Speaker 1: that and then adult females are hens, and then hatchlings
Speaker 1: babies of both sexes um are called poults p o
Speaker 1: u l ts. Yeah, the adult female is going to
Speaker 1: be about eight to eleven pounds, adult males about seventeen
Speaker 1: to twenty one. Um. We mentioned you know, if you
Speaker 1: look at a turkey, they've got all kinds of crazy
Speaker 1: stuff going on on their head. They look they look like,
Speaker 1: you know, something from a zombie movie. And and every
Speaker 1: single adult turkey has what's called carnicles, a snood sounds
Speaker 1: like Dr Seuss, and a do and a dow lap.
Speaker 1: The carnicles are those those big fleshy things at the
Speaker 1: bottom of the neck. The snood is the stuff that
Speaker 1: protrudes from the top of the head and sort of
Speaker 1: flaps over across the bill. And then that do lap
Speaker 1: is that little thin skin under the throat that's so
Speaker 1: uh tuggable. Yeah. And if it's just one thing of
Speaker 1: skin that goes vertically down the neck in the front,
Speaker 1: it's a do lap. If it has more than one, um,
Speaker 1: it's called the wattle. But these these things, the coronicles,
Speaker 1: the snood, and the dow lap are the things that
Speaker 1: make turkeys outrageously ugly to humans. But ironically those are
Speaker 1: the things that attract other turkeys. They like you said,
Speaker 1: change color. They're unique to each turkey. Um, and they
Speaker 1: are are like apparently if you're a female turkey, you're
Speaker 1: looking for a guy with a longer snood. That's an
Speaker 1: attractive thing to you. So I just find that really
Speaker 1: great that like we're like that. It's just those things
Speaker 1: are just so ugly. They could stop clock and to
Speaker 1: the turkey, it's like, man, nice snood, buddy, you're looking good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think chronicle, snood and dow lap would be
Speaker 1: like a great name for a comedy bluegrass trio that
Speaker 1: would be on he Hall or something. Oh my. Uh
Speaker 1: So the beard that I mentioned to Uma with Burning
Speaker 1: Florida reference no no um. For most turkey strains, the
Speaker 1: males are the only ones who have a beard, and
Speaker 1: that is this. It's a feather. It's a modified feather
Speaker 1: sort of in the upper chest that keeps growing. It's
Speaker 1: like a you know, if you have a one of
Speaker 1: those rat tails actually want to grow out for life.
Speaker 1: A lot of heat Hall references. I guess they grow
Speaker 1: about three to five inches a year. And if Vernon
Speaker 1: Florida is to be um is for in Florida, is correct?
Speaker 1: Then Mr Ships would point out that the longer the beard,
Speaker 1: the more sort of prize trophy it is. If you're
Speaker 1: a turkey hunter, like that'd be akin to a large
Speaker 1: rack of antlers because they mount the beard on a
Speaker 1: little plaque. Um right. Uh. The other thing about male
Speaker 1: turkeys that you can differentiate from a female, Um, Well,
Speaker 1: females have feathers that go up the back of their head,
Speaker 1: so it looks like they have a little mullet going on.
Speaker 1: Males do not. They have a bear head. And then
Speaker 1: males also have spurs like um do claws almost coming
Speaker 1: off of their legs and uh, hands typically don't right,
Speaker 1: And like I said, those males during breeding season they turn.
Speaker 1: The carnicles go red, the white is the crown of
Speaker 1: the head, and then the neck on the side of
Speaker 1: the face go blue. And there's just nothing more American
Speaker 1: than that. It's true. But that's just the gobblers, right.
Speaker 1: The hands don't turn. Yeah, so um, like you said,
Speaker 1: and I think I said first, you can find turkeys
Speaker 1: all over the place and all sorts of different conditions. Um,
Speaker 1: whether it's hot out, whether it's covered in snow, whether
Speaker 1: there's deer around, who cares. Turkeys are down for hanging out. Um.
Speaker 1: They just need, or I should say, prefer, certain kinds
Speaker 1: of habitats um huge trees in a mature forest, and
Speaker 1: typically they want mass bearing trees and mast. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what we were talking about recently. Oh, I think
Speaker 1: it was squirrels hiding nuts. Mast is like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite words of all time. It's just so earthy
Speaker 1: and natural. I just love it. Um. But it means
Speaker 1: like acorns and um, like tree nuts that that you
Speaker 1: can find in North America. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: things that turkeys e. So they need lots of trees
Speaker 1: that have lots of masts. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: that trees are roosting sites turkeys. Although they're not typically
Speaker 1: thought of as able to fly, they can't fly for
Speaker 1: short distances and they roost in trees at night, which
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever seen a turkey in a tree.
Speaker 1: I haven't either. Um, you know, I see turkeys quite
Speaker 1: a bit on the side of the road or taking
Speaker 1: hikes and stuff like that. But I guess it's because
Speaker 1: at night. I'm not hiking at night that I have
Speaker 1: never seen a turkey in a tree. Well, sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're diurnal, right, Well, yeah, I'm just saying that
Speaker 1: that must be the reason. Like I always see turkey
Speaker 1: sort of just pecking around on the trail. I think
Speaker 1: that's the I was laughing because you said you made
Speaker 1: it sound like the turkeys were hiking going on. Well,
Speaker 1: they're technically, I guess I can see in with like
Speaker 1: big chunky socks on and vast boots. Just being all serious,
Speaker 1: but you mentioned their range. Their home range is what
Speaker 1: it's called, and their home range is dictated by how
Speaker 1: much food is around, how much of that mast is around,
Speaker 1: and if they you know, they have pretty big ranges anyway,
Speaker 1: but if there's a lot of food around, then they
Speaker 1: may maintain like four hundred to a thousand acres, which
Speaker 1: is huge, and that's if it's abundant. If they don't
Speaker 1: have a lot of food around, they have been known
Speaker 1: to maintain ranges of eight thousand acres or more and
Speaker 1: travel up to fifty miles to different home ranges if
Speaker 1: they can't, like they don't, uh, technically they don't migrate.
Speaker 1: But the birds maintaining eight thousand acres and traveling fifty
Speaker 1: miles they're they're migrating around kind of. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: mean that must be a really poor habitat because turkeys
Speaker 1: are not picky eaters. Um. In addition to mast, they'll
Speaker 1: eat everything from seeds to lizards and basically anything they
Speaker 1: find that chock full of protein. They typically like things
Speaker 1: like seeds, plants, fruit berries, that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: they'll eat live animals um. Lead snake, Yeah, they lead
Speaker 1: a snake. They'll lead into crazy yep. And and and then
Speaker 1: particular when a turkey is born, the young turkey, the
Speaker 1: poult for the first week or two of their life,
Speaker 1: they're eating nothing but insects constantly. Yeah, And you know
Speaker 1: that's why they prefer a range. Uh. They like that forest,
Speaker 1: but they like the forest on the edge of some
Speaker 1: grassy areas because that moves them. They get some closer
Speaker 1: to those little insects that you're going to find for
Speaker 1: those pols, right exactly. And that's actually where pols are
Speaker 1: born and raised is in the grassy area at the
Speaker 1: edge of a forest, which is pretty cool and just
Speaker 1: quaint is all get out. It's so it's like cottage
Speaker 1: core for animals, you know. Yeah. Uh, if you think
Speaker 1: you that they may need to live near a lake
Speaker 1: or something to get their water, or a river or
Speaker 1: stream or any kind of wetland. You're wrong. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they love that kind of scenery, but they don't
Speaker 1: need it for water. They can get water their water
Speaker 1: intake from vegetation. They can get it from that morning
Speaker 1: do um, succulent insects, little small pools. Um. They can
Speaker 1: kind of forage through all that stuff to get enough water. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, like when there's like a lot of snow
Speaker 1: on the ground, they don't hiberdate or anything, but they
Speaker 1: go into like this kind of like uh, just hanging
Speaker 1: around the tree for chill mode time. Yeah, chill mode
Speaker 1: for sure. And the water intake is just a little
Speaker 1: bit of snow that they're eating off of the tree,
Speaker 1: and the food is maybe just a butt or two
Speaker 1: that they can find on the tree they're sitting on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know they do well. Turkeys are thriving, They
Speaker 1: eat a lot. They One thing you will not see
Speaker 1: very much unless they're sick is a skinny turkey under nurse.
Speaker 1: Turkeys are pretty rare, like I said, unless there's some
Speaker 1: sort of disease or maybe if it's like in the
Speaker 1: middle of a really really long winter, they might the
Speaker 1: thin up a little bit. But turkeys eat a lot
Speaker 1: and they're they're generally pretty healthy and plump, right. Um.
Speaker 1: So like we said, they're diurnal, right, they they are
Speaker 1: active during the day just like us humans. Uh. And
Speaker 1: you said they eat a lot, So they spend a
Speaker 1: significant amount of time eating. Um. And when they eat,
Speaker 1: they'll eat just about anything they can come across. But
Speaker 1: when they eat, they eat the thing that they're eating whole,
Speaker 1: especially if it's something soft like a berry. Right, they
Speaker 1: just swallow a whole. It gets digested along the way
Speaker 1: and they poop out whatever is left on the other side.
Speaker 1: But they also eat things like seeds and nuts and
Speaker 1: mass um. And they have a gizzard, which is like
Speaker 1: a second stomach that hard stuff gets diverted to, and
Speaker 1: it's this stomach is basically all muscle, and they also
Speaker 1: eat while they're pecking around for food. They also eat
Speaker 1: little pebbles and stones and bits of like hard things
Speaker 1: like bone, and those things stay in their gizzard and
Speaker 1: they become what are called gastro stones or gizzard stones,
Speaker 1: and they end up basically like a rock tumbler that
Speaker 1: crushes up things like seeds and mass that can then
Speaker 1: be diverted over to the regular stomach for digestion, which
Speaker 1: is pretty cool. Yeah. Another reason that I kind of
Speaker 1: identify with turkeys is that they they do chill a lot.
Speaker 1: They they get busy feeding and stuff and exploring around,
Speaker 1: scraping around, pecking around at the ground. But after they
Speaker 1: have eaten, they hang around for hours at a time.
Speaker 1: They will preen. They will it's called dusting when they
Speaker 1: just sort of move around in the loose soil. It's
Speaker 1: a dirt bath. Yeah, and they kind of just rest
Speaker 1: basically until a few hours before sunset and then they
Speaker 1: start feeding again. And then this is this is amazing.
Speaker 1: So right before nightfall though, they go back to those
Speaker 1: trees at night to sleep. And if they get caught
Speaker 1: sort of unaware, it's sort of like a vampire and
Speaker 1: they look up and that sun's going down, they will
Speaker 1: haul but back to their tree. Like they can run
Speaker 1: tended twenty miles an hour and fly in short bursts
Speaker 1: up to fifty five to get back to those trees.
Speaker 1: Because one sundown comes if they're not in their little
Speaker 1: homestead which offers a lot of protection there. Uh, they're
Speaker 1: in big time. Danger for predators. Can you just see
Speaker 1: a turkey like running back like gobble gobble gobble gobble
Speaker 1: gobble gobble cobble babies. So um. What's what I find
Speaker 1: interesting about them too, is is a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't realize turkeys are extremely good at seeing and hearing.
Speaker 1: We don't think that they're very good at smelling, but
Speaker 1: their sight and their hearing are so amazing that it
Speaker 1: really doesn't matter about the smell um. Apparently, they have
Speaker 1: three times the acuity of the average humans eyesight um
Speaker 1: and then in addition to that, they also see in color,
Speaker 1: which is rare for a bird um. And they also
Speaker 1: have between a two hundred and seventy and a three
Speaker 1: hundred degree field of vision humans have about a hundred eighty.
Speaker 1: And the reason why they can see so much around
Speaker 1: them is because the turkey's eyes are on the side
Speaker 1: of its head, which, on the one hand, gives them
Speaker 1: a disadvantage. They don't have binocular vision like humans do,
Speaker 1: so they have terrible depth perception, which is why you'll
Speaker 1: see footage of a turkey looking at something and it'll
Speaker 1: switch sides of its face that it's looking at you
Speaker 1: because it's trying to discern depth that way, just kind
Speaker 1: of quickly creating binocular vision like a flip book. But
Speaker 1: what it lacks in binocular vision, it makes up for
Speaker 1: with its incredible hearing because they're hearing is such they
Speaker 1: can identify the location of a sound really, really well.
Speaker 1: So they might not be able to see depth, but
Speaker 1: they can hear depth in addition to all the amazing
Speaker 1: stuff that they can see. You think we should take
Speaker 1: a break. I just that's fine. I'm just gonna keep
Speaker 1: talking through the break because I'm just so in love
Speaker 1: with turkeys right now. All right, we'll be right. So,
Speaker 1: you know, before the break you were talking about their
Speaker 1: hearing um in Vernon, Florida. Which have you seen that yet? Still?
Speaker 1: I know I have not gott I see it. Okay.
Speaker 1: It's one of the one of the great um documentaries,
Speaker 1: that is. But Mr Ship's really gives the like when
Speaker 1: you listen to this man talk and I'm not a
Speaker 1: hunter at all, but you really get a sense that
Speaker 1: turkey hunting is one of the most challenging hunts that
Speaker 1: you can undertake because of how smart, uh, how smart
Speaker 1: they are and he he says, they're a smart boyd.
Speaker 1: He's one of those guys always like that. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but um, how smart they are, and then that hearing
Speaker 1: like you have to be so quiet and so all
Speaker 1: of your movements have to be so deliberate, and even
Speaker 1: the slightest like cracking of a stick, that turkey will
Speaker 1: poke his head up and then just be gone out
Speaker 1: of there. So um, although I'm not a hunter at
Speaker 1: all and and don't would never shoot an animal, when
Speaker 1: you listen to this guy, you can't help but be
Speaker 1: sort of impressed with or maybe you just fall under
Speaker 1: his spell. How much he loved it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: So um yeah, so turkeys are really good at hearing,
Speaker 1: they're really good at seeing, and they're easily spooked, which
Speaker 1: all combined makes them very difficult to hunt. Yes, yeah
Speaker 1: so uh as far as um, they're flocking and and
Speaker 1: their behaviors. They live in separate flocks, the hens and
Speaker 1: the toms do. And then once the spring comes around
Speaker 1: and the days get longer, and then the warmer temperatures
Speaker 1: sort of start coming in, then the males are to
Speaker 1: leave their winter flocks and they're gonna start you know,
Speaker 1: now it's it's time to party basically with the hens,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna start, Like many animals, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of rituals of trying to get their attention. They're gobbling.
Speaker 1: They have a peak, a couple of peaks in gobbling,
Speaker 1: and the first one is at the very beginning of
Speaker 1: the breeding season, when there are a lot of hens
Speaker 1: around and you're, you know, you're trying to make yourself
Speaker 1: known as a worthy mail. Then you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: second flock. After are most of the mating has taken place,
Speaker 1: there are a lot less gobbling going on. And but
Speaker 1: those males who didn't mate, or maybe they did, and
Speaker 1: they're they're really trying to have another party. Basically that's
Speaker 1: when their second peak is going to happen, right, But
Speaker 1: in between those two peaks, there's less gobbling because by
Speaker 1: that time the hens are like, all right, I'm into this,
Speaker 1: so the males don't have to try as hard. And
Speaker 1: apparently that second peak in gobbling is kind of the
Speaker 1: more desperate. It's like a um, you know, at one
Speaker 1: fifty am at the bar, Oh totally, it's like does
Speaker 1: anyone anyone still want a party? Basically anybody around, but
Speaker 1: you got to do it like the Night of the
Speaker 1: Roxbury guys. But they're saying instead of him him, him,
Speaker 1: I think it's Tom ken and will mate with multiple hens,
Speaker 1: and hens actually may breed with the same mail more
Speaker 1: than once. I don't think anyone has made any argument
Speaker 1: that they're in love, but you never know. Let's say,
Speaker 1: at the very least they have chemistry. They're also polygamous.
Speaker 1: If you're in eastern wild Turkey, they think that they
Speaker 1: sort of have a harem basically where you have a
Speaker 1: bunch of different hens with one Tom until they've made it. Uh.
Speaker 1: If you are out west, you might see what's called
Speaker 1: a lek like system l e K, which is um,
Speaker 1: it's basically ah, I mean it's sort of group mating
Speaker 1: in group uh, group gobbling, like a bunch of Tom's
Speaker 1: will get together and sort of cobble together a lot
Speaker 1: of times. A group of siblings, like you know that,
Speaker 1: you know those Carter boys, they get together and put
Speaker 1: on quite a show for the ladies, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And that actually makes sense. Um, the harem makes sense
Speaker 1: because there's just such an abundance of turkeys that one
Speaker 1: one Jake, you know, one Tom can mate with multiple
Speaker 1: hands all at once, and you know the species continues.
Speaker 1: But where it's more spread out for them to all
Speaker 1: kind of come to one place. It makes sense because
Speaker 1: it's much more convenient. Um. But also because all these
Speaker 1: different displays of like manliness of tomliness, I guess um
Speaker 1: really gets the hens in the mood. So it kind
Speaker 1: of gets them prepared for mating much more quickly and
Speaker 1: efficiently too, which is a real advantage of the of
Speaker 1: the lex system. Yeah, and you actually did not misspeak
Speaker 1: because Jake's can mate. Um, they're just way less successful
Speaker 1: because they're Jake's. I met. Maybe there's some hens that
Speaker 1: sit around and say, like, you know, I'm really more
Speaker 1: into Jake's than Tom's because it was like Nancy, well,
Speaker 1: I never um, but they do. Jake's actually can mate,
Speaker 1: but you know, because it's because they are. They attract
Speaker 1: females by those big shows and the best gobbles. They're
Speaker 1: just usually not quite there yet. Yeah, and we'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about I love if we always set
Speaker 1: up like all the stuff we're gonna talk about in
Speaker 1: every episode and then we actually talk about like maybe
Speaker 1: seventy of it. But um, there's actually there's hierarchies and
Speaker 1: turkey flocks which we'll talk about. But um, when like
Speaker 1: the Carter brothers show up, or there's young Jake's and
Speaker 1: older ones um. Depending on the dominance of the turkey,
Speaker 1: that turkey is much more likely to actually mate. But
Speaker 1: all the turkeys will be strutting their stuff, getting the
Speaker 1: hens in the mood. It's really kind of this communal thing,
Speaker 1: and that's that actually makes sense because turkeys, it turns out,
Speaker 1: are super super social animals um. Which makes the fact
Speaker 1: that the hens once they have made it uh and
Speaker 1: go off to lay the eggs um, they do that themselves.
Speaker 1: It's basically the one thing they do as individuals UM.
Speaker 1: But they do like basically two a hand. They will
Speaker 1: go off, they will find a nice grassy area at
Speaker 1: the entrance of a nice um wood um, and they
Speaker 1: will start laying eggs, and they'll lay one egg and
Speaker 1: cover it up and then leave, and the next day,
Speaker 1: usually about the same time, weirdly, they come back and
Speaker 1: lay another egg, covered up, and then as they start
Speaker 1: laying more and more eggs, they kind of reach like
Speaker 1: this critical threshold to where they're like, Okay, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: emotionally invested in these eggs. Now, I'm just gonna stay
Speaker 1: around here and guard them. And then eventually incubate them,
Speaker 1: and they do, and then about twenty four hours before
Speaker 1: the eggs start to hatch chuck. They actually start making
Speaker 1: um sounds, basically saying I'm I'm about to come out now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's really cute. Uh, this little pipping sounds and this
Speaker 1: pecking with and this is one of the cutest words
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. The first little hole uh that these
Speaker 1: things make from within the egg to get out is
Speaker 1: made with an egg tooth. How cute is that? It
Speaker 1: is very cute, But I mean the fact, can you
Speaker 1: imagine seeing a little turkey egg pipping it's it's probably amazing.
Speaker 1: And I know the hen is entrance because the hen
Speaker 1: starts to make a little encouraging clucks like come along,
Speaker 1: little fellows, let's get on out, Let's get on out.
Speaker 1: And it could take about a day for all these
Speaker 1: um polts to hatch, and they are very mobile from
Speaker 1: the time they're hatched, but they are also very closely
Speaker 1: bonded to mama hen and the siblings for a little while, um,
Speaker 1: a pretty short while. For a couple of days, they
Speaker 1: all sit around together. They um, they imprint on one
Speaker 1: another and they one of the big things that they
Speaker 1: do is they learn what mama sounds like. We'll get
Speaker 1: to the calls later, but there's something card called an
Speaker 1: alarm call, which is exactly what you think it is.
Speaker 1: It's very very important way to say, hey, everybody, get
Speaker 1: out of here. There's a you know, there's a raccoon
Speaker 1: or a or a bobcat in the woods or something.
Speaker 1: And they have to learn their own mother's alarm call.
Speaker 1: And that's what they're doing in large part for those
Speaker 1: first couple of days. Yeah, and within the first couple
Speaker 1: of days and actually, um, a couple of weeks, they
Speaker 1: can't fly, so they're real vulnerable because remember the mom
Speaker 1: nests in in like grassland, not in the trees. Um.
Speaker 1: So until they can fly, they can't roost in trees.
Speaker 1: So they're they're big defense is to just scatter and
Speaker 1: stay still. Yeah, and like as in frozen still for
Speaker 1: up to a half an hour. If they hear that
Speaker 1: alarm call. These little baby turkeys will just freeze like mannequins.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, it is amazing. Um. One of the things
Speaker 1: when a mother hen gives birth to a brood of poults,
Speaker 1: they're usually there's a one to one ratio between males
Speaker 1: and females, between jakes and baby hens, which I found
Speaker 1: pretty amazing unless chuck something else happens. Yeah, this is
Speaker 1: you know. I feel like usually when we cover animals
Speaker 1: there's always one really astounding adaptation that we cover a
Speaker 1: lot of times more than one. But in the case
Speaker 1: of turkeys, they these hens. If they don't find a
Speaker 1: mate and don't mate, they can still have little babies
Speaker 1: through parthenogenesis. They can produce viable eggs. It doesn't happen
Speaker 1: a lot, it seems like, and the embryos um I
Speaker 1: think very few of them survive, but it is it
Speaker 1: is medically impossible for a hen to to produce a
Speaker 1: little baby eggs and have one. And if they do
Speaker 1: have one and it actually lives, it is going to
Speaker 1: be a male hatchling always, which is counterintuitive to me.
Speaker 1: I think if it's an eleven uh, if it's an
Speaker 1: evolution anary adaptation, would seem like they would be female. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it's like bees, like, aren't aren't
Speaker 1: n unfertilized be eggs don't they turn into male drones
Speaker 1: And it's just the fertilized ones that become female workers.
Speaker 1: I don't remember. I'm pretty sure if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: So it's weird that it would it would happen like that,
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's a pretty rare occurrence, that parton a genesis,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, So, um, now you've got all the
Speaker 1: all the little pols have hatched, and they've they've been
Speaker 1: running around eating bugs in the grass, and it's been
Speaker 1: about seventeen days and now they can fly. So they're
Speaker 1: starting to roost in the tree. And at first, adorably,
Speaker 1: they're still scared little babies, so they roost under their
Speaker 1: mother's wing at night. But as they get a little
Speaker 1: more confident, they'll start to spread out into some of
Speaker 1: the surrounding branches of the tree and the roost um.
Speaker 1: And what you've got now is a new flock of turkeys.
Speaker 1: But like I was saying, turkeys are extremely social creachers,
Speaker 1: so those flocks typically tend to join other flocks, especially
Speaker 1: mother hens with new poults, they'll live with other flocks
Speaker 1: of um mother hens with their own pulse, and they'll
Speaker 1: become these kind of like huge mega flocks where you know,
Speaker 1: if you walk through at night, it seemed like every
Speaker 1: branch of every tree around you was filled with turkeys,
Speaker 1: and that would happen probably sometime in the spring, like
Speaker 1: the early mid spring, after the eggs have hatched and
Speaker 1: the babies are all now roosting in the trees with
Speaker 1: their moms. Yeah, and here's another one that really tugged
Speaker 1: on my heart strings a lot of times. Once they
Speaker 1: have joined these other flocks, if you are the only
Speaker 1: if you don't have any siblings, if you're the only
Speaker 1: survivor of your hatch, um, you will oftentimes take up
Speaker 1: with another mother hen and they will sort of adopt
Speaker 1: you into their little family so you can have siblings.
Speaker 1: And if that doesn't knock your socks off, they also
Speaker 1: adopt the original mom to come along. Yeah, me too. Basically,
Speaker 1: they are just like, come and join our family. You
Speaker 1: only had one little baby that lived, and they need
Speaker 1: some siblings, So why don't you and your in your
Speaker 1: little hatchling come along and your little polt and join us,
Speaker 1: Come have Thanksgiving with us. That's they don't say that word. So, um,
Speaker 1: you've got the T word is what they say. Yeah,
Speaker 1: T day. Um. So there's there's that's one kind of flock.
Speaker 1: There's also a lot of um Like the Jake's the
Speaker 1: young males in the um. That flock will continue to
Speaker 1: stay until I believe the fall and they'll leave and
Speaker 1: they'll go for mother flocks with other jake's and sometimes
Speaker 1: um older gobblers and UM especially with their siblings too.
Speaker 1: They'll hang out with them UM and then it'll the
Speaker 1: young hands and the mother hans will stay together and
Speaker 1: form their own flocks. So there's different flocks. But turkeys
Speaker 1: are so social that they've been found too. If you
Speaker 1: take a bird a turkey from its flock and put
Speaker 1: it somewhere else, it'll base really just stand in one
Speaker 1: spot and make a scared sound until you take the
Speaker 1: turkey and put it back with its flock. Like they
Speaker 1: have been shown to be basically debilitated when they removed
Speaker 1: from their flock. And I was watching this video UM
Speaker 1: called turkey and dog best friends are inseparable. Those are
Speaker 1: the best things on the internet. So this turkey and
Speaker 1: this dog, like, seriously, we're housemates, friends, like really great friends.
Speaker 1: And the woman who adopted the turkey, I think as
Speaker 1: a poult um was like, well, you know, the turkey
Speaker 1: needs to be on a farm with other turkeys, so
Speaker 1: she took it to a farm to go live its
Speaker 1: life as a turkey on a turkey farm. And it
Speaker 1: did the same thing that I've just described. It just
Speaker 1: stood in one spot in the barnyard and made this
Speaker 1: horrible call for I think three days. She let it
Speaker 1: go on and finally was like, fine, come back home.
Speaker 1: Right when she got it back home with the dog,
Speaker 1: the turkey stopped and was back home and has been
Speaker 1: there ever since. It's definitely worth watching that video. That
Speaker 1: will if you're like, I don't know, I still like
Speaker 1: to eat turkeys, and once you watch that one, that's
Speaker 1: that's gonna be it for you. Pal. You can't eat
Speaker 1: turkeys or dogs anymore. No, I can't eat pigs either.
Speaker 1: So another I guess we mentioned the alarm call. Turkeys
Speaker 1: have an astounding ability to communicate with each other. They
Speaker 1: have a lot of different vocalizations. Mr Henry Ship's talks
Speaker 1: about a lot of those, the different kinds of gobbles
Speaker 1: that a turkey hunter has to be acquainted with and
Speaker 1: make yourself to uh to attract turkeys. But there he
Speaker 1: calls them yeps. Of course, there are three kinds of yelps.
Speaker 1: There's the tree yelp, the plane yelp, and the plane
Speaker 1: lost call uh and then there are a couple of
Speaker 1: basic calls, the clock and the alarm put and then
Speaker 1: a few other just uh complex calls. There's the cackle
Speaker 1: of the gobble and what's called the ki ki, But
Speaker 1: that tree yelp is what they're gonna make that sort
Speaker 1: of their morning routine. The first thing they do in
Speaker 1: the morning is start tree yelping, and it's basically like, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: good morning, how did you sleep, Good morning? Good morning.
Speaker 1: There's the plane yelp, which is like, um, like just
Speaker 1: during the day, if you want to say, hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: let's let's come huddle up over here. Because when they
Speaker 1: eat as a flock, they might spread out over a
Speaker 1: quarter acre, but we've seen that they will always have
Speaker 1: at least one constantly looking out and they'll trade that
Speaker 1: job off, but there's always at least one bird looking
Speaker 1: out for the rest of the flock ready to make.
Speaker 1: A call. Might be a plane plane yelp, it might
Speaker 1: be an alarm putt, but whatever that that is, it's
Speaker 1: going to get the bird's attention very quickly. Right then
Speaker 1: you have that plane lost call. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: the plane yelp, but it's usually louder. It's got some
Speaker 1: more urgency to it, um, and that they think is
Speaker 1: more for family. It's like, hey, you and all your
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters, get over here. Toot sweet yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: There's also what else? The cluck, which is to say, hey, hey, chuck, cluck, cluck, cluck, chuck,
Speaker 1: you look up what and I say, I forgot. I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, you go back to eating. I just
Speaker 1: said specific to a person, meaning a turkey person, right,
Speaker 1: a tom or a him. Um, there's that alarm put
Speaker 1: put which is basically like, hey, everybody, there's something weird
Speaker 1: going on. The kiki is if a little poult or
Speaker 1: a younger turkey is a little worried and wants to
Speaker 1: be reassured or what, doesn't know where everybody is. That's
Speaker 1: probably a pretty cute one. I listened to some of
Speaker 1: these and um, they're not they're not. It's not on
Speaker 1: a monopeia Like the ki ki doesn't sound like a
Speaker 1: key key to me. I don't know what they're talking about,
Speaker 1: but it sounds like a wine almost. It's weird. And
Speaker 1: then you have the cackle, which, um, that's sort of
Speaker 1: like hello and goodbye when you're coming into your rooster.
Speaker 1: You're leaving in your roost, you're gonna cackle and say
Speaker 1: I'm here, all right. Gobble. Everybody knows the gobble. But
Speaker 1: it turns out that's actually not that frequent a sound.
Speaker 1: It's one of the least frequent sounds they make because
Speaker 1: it's typically made by Tom's when they're strutting their stuff
Speaker 1: for you know, mating to you know, get it on,
Speaker 1: literally strutting their stuff right. Um. And then here is
Speaker 1: one of the facts of this chock full of fact podcasts.
Speaker 1: Turkeys per and when they purr, it's quite obvious they're
Speaker 1: purring with contentment, exactly like a cat. Yeah, it's pretty neat.
Speaker 1: I saw another video of a turkey being stroked and
Speaker 1: petted and it just crawled up on the person's lap purring.
Speaker 1: So the other thing when they're when they've laid these
Speaker 1: eggs and everything they and incubating, they will turn them periodically,
Speaker 1: which is really great. And they're what they're doing that
Speaker 1: is they're letting these letting the exchange oxygen and CEO
Speaker 1: two as well as they think. And this makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense, keeping the little embryo from attaching to
Speaker 1: one side of the egg. So if it starts to attach.
Speaker 1: They'll just turn it and then it'll flop down and
Speaker 1: not attach itself. And then there's also re nesting right
Speaker 1: there is, which is basically like if the if the
Speaker 1: turkey is disturbed during the nesting process, she may go
Speaker 1: off and create a new nest. I get the impression
Speaker 1: of the other eggs are abandoned, um or Remember we
Speaker 1: said that she is emotionally invested after a certain point.
Speaker 1: If she's disturbed, then she just abandons the nest and
Speaker 1: doesn't do anymore nesting that season, which is very sad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's super sad. So you want to take a break,
Speaker 1: let's do it. Okay, we'll be right back, everybody, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: I think at the beginning I was saying that turkeys
Speaker 1: are way more intelligent than we think, and that's true,
Speaker 1: right They a smart boy, one of the smartest we
Speaker 1: got in this country. That's a good, good vern In Florida.
Speaker 1: He's passed on, by the way, one of the cool uh.
Speaker 1: And if you're interested in that movie, go see it.
Speaker 1: And there's also a movie Crush episode where one of
Speaker 1: my really really good friends, Mike comes on and talks
Speaker 1: about vern In Florida and he actually struck up a
Speaker 1: friendship with Henry Ship's via telephone for the remainder of
Speaker 1: his life. Oh that's neat. That's a long telephone call. Well,
Speaker 1: they talked off and on quite a bit. It was
Speaker 1: really special. Yeah, I guess that's cool man. That's so
Speaker 1: he just called him out of the blue. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: and Henry, he would call him up, Well, hey, Mike,
Speaker 1: how are you doing. But and this was twenty something
Speaker 1: years after run in Florida was from the I think
Speaker 1: early nineties or maybe even late eighties, and so he
Speaker 1: just you know, he got a kick out of it
Speaker 1: that that Mike thought he was famous. That's cool. That's
Speaker 1: cool man. So you never answered my Oh yeah, you
Speaker 1: did kind of answer my question. Turkeys are rather smart.
Speaker 1: There's a a longstanding myth that turkeys are so stupid
Speaker 1: they'll actually drown when it's raining because they look up
Speaker 1: at the rain and the rain falls down their gullet
Speaker 1: and draw them. That that's true. I've heard that before.
Speaker 1: H it's true that there's a myth. The myth itself
Speaker 1: is totally totally wrong. Um, that's been observed. Something similar
Speaker 1: has been observed mistakenly in domesticated birds, meaning like factory
Speaker 1: farm turkeys, and um, they've actually shown that if that
Speaker 1: has ever happened, it's not the turkey looking up to
Speaker 1: see the rain, because the turkey wouldn't look up to
Speaker 1: see something above. It would look from the side of
Speaker 1: its head because it has mon pocular vision yea, so
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be looking at the rain. And if it
Speaker 1: is looking up and has ever drowned or something or
Speaker 1: seemed to have drowned, it was because it was having
Speaker 1: a certain kind of seizure that apparently domesticated factory farm
Speaker 1: turkeys have as a general condition. They have seizures and
Speaker 1: actually die from those kind of seizures fairly frequently. So
Speaker 1: they think some farm worker saw turkey have a seizure
Speaker 1: while I was looking up while it was raining and
Speaker 1: died and that actually might have given birth to this
Speaker 1: incredibly wrong myth. It turns out that was my cousin. Uh.
Speaker 1: They are smart and they have great memories, which is
Speaker 1: you know, in the animal kingdom, memory is is a
Speaker 1: is an interesting thing and a lot of times a
Speaker 1: pretty good indicator of intelligence and just something more going
Speaker 1: on there. Uh. Whild turkeys have a great memory. They
Speaker 1: can remember very precise locations. They can go back to
Speaker 1: the same location miles away at the same exact time
Speaker 1: of day to get food, so they have a really
Speaker 1: good internal clock as well. And uh hands and Tom's.
Speaker 1: They can also chuck supposedly differentiate human faces, so like
Speaker 1: they can tell humans who are different based on their face,
Speaker 1: which is pretty smart if you ask me. Oh, totally. Um,
Speaker 1: they can be a nuisance if you like have a farm. Um,
Speaker 1: they're they're droppings can carry disease at times, but they
Speaker 1: you know, they're easily scared. Like you said, like there's
Speaker 1: a list of things and how to get rid of turkeys,
Speaker 1: um that we came up with. Uh, well it didn't invent,
Speaker 1: but came up with from experts. They've been testing them
Speaker 1: out all week and it seems like all of them
Speaker 1: are like you know, turkeys get scared super easily. So
Speaker 1: scare them off or if they're a real problem on
Speaker 1: your property, put up a uh a motion activated scarecrow
Speaker 1: or water sprinkler or something like that. Um, any kind
Speaker 1: of loud noise, flailing your arms. I don't get rid
Speaker 1: of turkeys. They just they they're scared of you. They
Speaker 1: want to get out of there. They're not aggressive. They
Speaker 1: can be intimidating if you're a kid because they're big.
Speaker 1: But even a kid's gonna scare a turkey off. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they they are easy to scare off, but they can
Speaker 1: also be really intimidating and aggressive, especially if it's a
Speaker 1: tom during mating season. Um. So you're supposed to do
Speaker 1: the same thing to turkeys that you do to coyotes,
Speaker 1: and it's called hazing, where you show them your dominant
Speaker 1: and you can do it by everything from turning the
Speaker 1: hose on them, um, throwing a tennis ball in their
Speaker 1: general direction. Opening umbrella is a big one. But you're
Speaker 1: basically saying like, I'm not scared of you, and in fact,
Speaker 1: I'm going to scare you off. Because if you don't
Speaker 1: do that, apparently, then they become increasingly more difficult to
Speaker 1: get rid of because they think they're dominant to you
Speaker 1: or say a family member. And if you combine that
Speaker 1: with somebody, whether it's you or a neighbor or something,
Speaker 1: feeding the turkeys or even letting them eat bird seed
Speaker 1: out of your bird feeder, Um, that's a that that
Speaker 1: that can be a problem, actually, especially if you don't
Speaker 1: like turkeys running at you. Yeah, and the other really
Speaker 1: cool fact about hazing as they say that, like everyone
Speaker 1: in your family has to do it. If you want
Speaker 1: to solve your turkey problem, Like you've got to get
Speaker 1: if grandma lives there, she's got to get out there
Speaker 1: and haze that turkey. If you've got a four year old,
Speaker 1: you gotta send that four year old out there to
Speaker 1: haze that turkey supervised, I would imagine. But like every
Speaker 1: person in that house has to exert their dominance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exert it with extreme prejudice all over that turkey. Gross.
Speaker 1: So um, I guess that's it. One thing I saw chuck.
Speaker 1: For Thanksgiving today, eight percent of Americans will eat turkey,
Speaker 1: which actually, which seems right, doesn't seem high or low.
Speaker 1: But get this, that translates to seven million pounds of
Speaker 1: turkey on average, or forty six million turkeys all killed
Speaker 1: and eating on a single day today. Goodness me. And
Speaker 1: then that's a lot of turkeys. It's a lot of turkeys.
Speaker 1: Uh so, uh, if you want to know more about turkey,
Speaker 1: he's go watch some turkey and dog friendship videos and
Speaker 1: uh that might make you regret what you just had
Speaker 1: to eat. And since I said that, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. Uh yeah, and before listener mail, I just
Speaker 1: want to close the window on the Vernon, Florida thing
Speaker 1: if you uh don't know what I'm talking about. It
Speaker 1: was a documentary originally, and this fairly interesting. Errol Morris
Speaker 1: went down to this sleepy town, like I said, Inland
Speaker 1: in the Florida Panhandle to do a documentary on these
Speaker 1: people that live there who would cut off their limbs
Speaker 1: for insurance money. And that was they were. It was
Speaker 1: called stub Town was the nickname he went down there.
Speaker 1: No one would talk about it. Uh, And so he
Speaker 1: found himself down there without a documentary subject all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, and so he just, after talking to these people,
Speaker 1: said well, this town is a documentary in and of itself.
Speaker 1: And he just turned the camera on the citizens and
Speaker 1: there's probably like ten or twelve of them. It's sort
Speaker 1: of interviewed through the whole thing that that's cut together,
Speaker 1: and that's all it is is these people that live
Speaker 1: in Vernon, Florida. Pretty cool. Yeah, I need to see
Speaker 1: it one day. Yeah it is. It is a cult
Speaker 1: classic and a true documentary legend. It's really great. Uh So,
Speaker 1: listener mail, this comes from Erica. Hey, Josh, Chuck and
Speaker 1: Jerry listen to the podcast episode on fruit flies. I
Speaker 1: want to say that Chuck's pronunciation of the word drosophila
Speaker 1: is correct. That's rare. Having worked in a basic research
Speaker 1: laboratory for years, I've often pined for a science dictionary
Speaker 1: to help with pronouncing scientific terminology and nomenclature. For example,
Speaker 1: unless you chat with researchers on a regular basis, how
Speaker 1: would you know to pronounce the gene b R c
Speaker 1: A one as bracca one and c d o as kiddo,
Speaker 1: while p D one is just p D one. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you would know. You wouldn't You need
Speaker 1: to make smart friends, I think is what it comes
Speaker 1: down to. That's right, And she says, as long as
Speaker 1: we're discussing pronunciations, you mentioned in your episode on the
Speaker 1: US interstate system that Californians add the word the for
Speaker 1: any freeway highway number. I've lived in the Bay Area
Speaker 1: my whole life. I hesitate to generalize for all of
Speaker 1: northern California, but at least in the Bay Area. Most
Speaker 1: people say things like the rest of the country one
Speaker 1: on one highway one on one instead of the one
Speaker 1: on one anyone who says the one on one is
Speaker 1: most likely from southern California. Got it? That makes sense? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I guess that is sort of that makes sense.
Speaker 1: It's an l A thing, right, Yeah, That's what I
Speaker 1: always associated with for sure. So that is Erica. Well
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, Erica. That um email is just chock
Speaker 1: full of info and we appreciate it big time. Thank you.
Speaker 1: If you want to be like Erica and send us
Speaker 1: an email chock full of info, we love them, you
Speaker 1: can send it off to us at stuff podcast at
Speaker 1: iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you should know is a
Speaker 1: production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more podcasts
Speaker 1: for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or where ever you listen to your pay
Speaker 1: at ships