It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada.
Why I won’t be purchasing a turkey to cook on Thanksgiving Day…
…especially (don’t click on the link if you’re sensitive, like me, to animal cruelty) a
Butterball turkey.
Recently, I was watching a television programme where a turkey farmer was being interviewed. In the background, a “tom” (male turkey) was fidgeting about. The interviewer asked, “What is that turkey
doing?” to which the farmer replied, “He’s masturbating.”
The fact that a turkey was frantically masturbating on national television and this event was treated like it was nothing unusual, gave me pause for thought. (And I know what you’re thinking. A masturbating turkey sounds rather amusing but I was not laughing.)
Because suddenly it hit me
why the turkey was masturbating.
Today’s “super turkeys” (also known as the “
Broad Breasted White”); the kind most often found in your supermarket, are bred on overcrowded
factory farms for maximum breast size. Because of their over-sized breasts, the toms are too heavy to mate naturally with the hens. The hens must be artificially inseminated. It’s a
traumatic experience for both males and females. So is it any wonder that the turkey on TV was masturbating?
Call me old-fashioned but in my opinion, this isn’t right.
The hens are never in contact with their chicks. As a result, the chicks don’t learn survival skills based on behavioural clues from their mothers, not to mention that hen and chick are deprived of
maternal bonding.
Above: How it
should be.
Turkeys
not forced to live on factory farms “spend their days caring for their young, building nests, foraging for food, taking dust baths, preening themselves, and roosting high in trees.” These simple, natural pleasures are denied the factory farm turkeys.
Oh, and did I mention that due to their large size, factory farm turkeys can’t run or fly? Wild turkeys can fly at speeds up to 55 miles an hour and run 18 miles an hour. Factory farm turkeys don’t run; they waddle.
The turkeys our ancestors raised or purchased, known today as “
heritage turkeys,” have become rare breeds although there are efforts underway to increase their numbers.
I'm not insisting that we all become vegetarians but the manner in which the food industry operates must be challenged and changed.
So if you
do eat turkey, perhaps you’ll consider purchasing a local, organic, small farm-raised turkey, or a heritage turkey instead. Even if the issue of ethical turkey farming isn’t important to you, you’ll notice an improvement in the flavor.
