The short, painful life of your Thanksgiving turkey

The United States is the world’s largest turkey producer and the largest exporter of turkey products. Its residents also consume an ever-increasing amount of these birds. In 1970, Americans ate just over 8lbs (3.6kg) per person annually; by 2021, the National Turkey Federation reports that figure had nearly doubled to more than 15lbs.

That demand and modern breeding have transformed turkeys. They’ve been bred to put on weight quickly, and at slaughter, the average turkey today weighs almost twice as much as turkeys did in 1960. The contrast with the rate of growth of wild turkeys is even greater. At four months old, a male wild turkey will weigh no more than 8lbs, whereas at the same age, a male turkey selectively bred for meat will weigh 41lbs.

That puts an enormous strain on their immature leg bones. Professor John Webster, a veterinarian and expert on the welfare of farmed animals, has studied a similar problem in fast-growing chickens and concluded that they are in pain for the last third of their lives – a situation that has been compared with forcing someone with arthritis in their legs to stand up all day long.

Turkeys have even more leg problems than chickens because they are also bred to grow rapidly, but in addition, they are almost all broad-breasted whites. Birds of this breed have been described as “physiologically unbalanced”. They walk or stand less than older breeds, presumably because it is painful for them to put weight on their legs. A 2013 study of turkeys at 13 different slaughterhouses found that 60% had swelling of the foot pad, and 25% had arthritis.

All of these birds are likely to have experienced pain when walking or standing. These problems could be avoided by genetic selection of the turkeys to be reared – in this case, selecting for slower growth to give the birds’ legs time to mature sufficiently to bear the weight of their bodies.

But the attitude of the industry to such a suggestion was once made clear by Scott Beyer, poultry specialist at Kansas State University, when he wrote in a 2008 paper: “Although a small percentage of birds may be predisposed to leg problems, use of highly selected fast-growing strains is recommended because savings in feed costs and time far outweigh the loss of a few birds.”

Economics overrides the suffering of the turkeys, every time. When Beyer referred to “the loss of a few birds”, he means the birds whose condition is so bad that they die before they are ready to be sent to slaughter at three or four months of age. Those deaths are occurring in birds of a species that, when not bred for maximum breast meat, could live for 10 years.

Nor are these deaths so “few” except relative to the 210m turkeys raised and slaughtered in the United States. According to the US Poultry Industry Manual, “[turkey] hens usually finish with total mortality of 5–6%, while total tom mortality is 10–12%”, and according to the US Department of Agriculture, 57% of turkeys slaughtered are toms and 43% hens.

Let’s do the calculations on those numbers, conservatively taking the low end of the mortality range. Then we find that in 2022, producers started out with 133m toms and sent 119.7m to slaughter. With hens, the figures are 95.1m hatched and 90.3m sent to slaughter. Putting both sexes together tells us that when Beyer dismissed the loss of a few birds, he was saying savings in feed costs and time outweigh the painful deaths of 18m young birds.

In addition to the leg and foot problems suffered by many turkeys, that study of 13 slaughterhouses found that 30% of them had blisters or other sores on the skin around their breastbone. These “breast buttons”, as they are called, commonly occur in turkeys who spend most of their time lying down on their sternum.

One factor in causing these sores may be the bird droppings in the litter of sawdust or wood shavings used to cover the floors of commercial turkey sheds, where the birds are crammed by the thousands. The droppings are alkaline, and when there is moisture in the litter or on the bird’s skin, it can cause a caustic burn on the part of the bird that is pressed into it.

So for these deliberately deformed turkeys, there is no escape from pain. If they lie down to avoid the pain of carrying their heavy, unbalanced bodies on their arthritic legs and swollen feet, they end up with painful sores on their breastbone.

And that’s not all. A Mercy for Animals undercover video shows turkeys at week 15 of their confinement, some of whom have obviously been victims of aggression from other turkeys. They have extensive bloody wounds in their necks, cracked scalps or are bleeding from their eyes. The investigator reported some of these problems to the manager, who took no action.

This is what life is like for the birds whose bodies are on the table at Thanksgiving.