No. 5. DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE. 219 



SELECTING AND MATING BREEDING TURKEYS 



In selecting breeders and mating them, wild turkey habits should 

 be considered. In early spring the wild turkey love season is on. 

 There is a great gobbling in the tree-tops. The wild turkey-cocks in 

 all their glittering sheen prance and puff themselves up and spread 

 their fan tails before their lady loves, and after much flirtation and 

 many bloody battles between rival cocks, the victor selects a single, 

 sometimes two mates, and they seek the deep brush to nest. But 

 the nature faker has made a Mormon of the turk, has given him a 

 harem of as high as twenty or thirty females, when from two to 

 eight is enough for him to naturally take care of. In the fall the 

 wild turkey mates separate, the gobbler going one way, the hen the 

 other, and their offspring scattering through the forest and all tak- 

 ing new fresh blood affinities in the spring. This tip to avoid family 

 circle mating was not taken by thousands who are now confirmed 

 turkey pessimists. They bred father and daughter, brother and sis- 

 ter, mother and son, and their process has driven more nails into the 

 turkey coffin than any other. Many farmers varied the program by 

 swapping gobblers with the next farm, or the farmer five miles away, 

 but they forget that their fathers and grandfathers had done this 

 for years before them and they also forgot how far turkeys roam, 

 how flocks mix afield, and how many nasty mixups farmers had over 

 their ownership in the fall. 



A turkey hen has been known to travel nine miles to hunt a mate, 

 in the breeding season and this careless trading of birds has made 

 wide areas inbred and has made much of the turkey tribe an easy 

 target for the deadly black-head germ. Two gobblers kept with the 

 same hens often fight and invariably interfere with each other at 

 pairing, and as a hen's whole season's laying is fertilized at once, 

 no poults may result. 



(See Fig. 3.) 



As to size, medium is the market call, and very large birds make 

 poor breeders. To increase size, use large hens rather than heavy 

 gobblers, as the latter often fail to fertilize eggs, may die during 

 strain of breeding season, and often rip the hens down the sides at 

 pairing. Two gobblers may weigh the same and be like as two peas 

 in a pod, but close examination may show one fat and flabby, small 

 of bone, done growing, and incapable of fertilizing eggs or giving 

 strong poults. 



A good breeder shows a bright eye, large head, strong beak, big 

 throat wattles, long, strong neck; back broad, curved, sloping grace- 

 fully to tail; wide, full, round breast; strong big wings, heavy drum- 

 sticks, long, thick shanks and big feet set wide apart. The body 

 should be like an egg, big end front, and the turkey-raiser should, in 

 particular, strive to produce much breast meat, the turkey's chief 

 charm to bring the big price, and the epicure's delight. Our draw- 

 ing (Model Male Shape) has been pronounced by prominent turkey 

 raisers in England and America as correct for shape. 



The wild turkey with its natural environment, free life, fresh 

 blood and natural turkey food, matures in a season, but the tame 

 turkey, on account of nature-fake breeding and feeding, is not really 

 matured in less than two years, the mating of young, immature stock 



