CHAPTER XI 



Turkeys 



The turkey, when it can be raised successfully, is 

 perhaps the most profitable of all kinds of poultry. 

 On range where it can pick up its food it costs much 

 less to feed than a chicken, and prices are always 

 high, for the demand always exceeds the supply. 



THE TURKEY A WILD BIRD 



The turkey, it must never be forgotten, is not a 

 domestic bird, accustomed by centuries of artificial 

 feeding and housing to eating what is set before it 

 and being thankful if it happens to be well fed ; it is 

 a wild bird with a wild bird's ways. It is its nature 

 to pick up its food, here a bug, there a grasshopper, 

 a weed seed or a nibble of grass — never much at a 

 time, and always plenty of little stones and animal 

 food, and our way of feeding — perhaps I should say 

 stuffing — fowls is absolute destruction to this deli- 

 cate wild creature. There is no doubt in my mind, 

 after more than one bitter experience, that ninety- 

 nine out of every hundred turkeys that come to their 

 death die from overfeeding. The person undertak- 

 ing to raise turkeys must write this rule on the 

 tablets of memory and never for a moment forget 

 or ignore it — "Keep them hungry." And this means, 

 not merely give them what they will eat up clean, 

 but make the meal so small that they will be always 

 begging for more. 



In matters of care and housing, as well as in feed- 

 ing, this inherent wildness of the turkey must always 

 be considered. The turkey is naturally a forager, 



