Wild turkeys were very plentiful when the settlers first arrived in the United States. Their numbers declined greatly over time due to over harvesting for food, destruction of their habitat, and predators. Due to the efforts of conservation officials, the numbers of wild turkeys are increasing in the Eastern United States even though turkeys are hunted in many areas.
     Turkeys are group-oriented birds. At most times of the year, they tend to move around in groups called flocks. The term flock is also used to describe a bunch of turkeys grown commercially. The commercial turkey retains a lot of the behavior seen in wild turkeys. When feeding, females will call to attract other birds. In the wild, this signal is used to attract their offspring, called poults. Male turkeys, called toms, strut to attract females. They can change the size of the protrusion on their forehead (snood) and the color of their face. The change in face color is done by changing the relative amount of arterial and venous blood that flows to the area. Commercial turkeys also have alarm signals like those used by wild turkeys. Normally a flock of turkeys make several sounds all of the time depending on sex and current activity. When commercial turkeys are grown outside, thousands of turkeys in a field may become immediately quiet when a plane or large bird flies overhead. This is due to one or more birds giving an alarm signal. When housed in large groups inside a house, one can get the group to move away or come towards a person by emitting the appropriate signal.
     Turkeys have a specific interaction among individuals. There is one individual that can peck every other individual in a flock without being pecked back. There is a second individual that can peck all other turkeys except the top one without being pecked back. This pecking order goes all the way down the line until there is an individual that has no one to peck. This pecking order is developed early in life and is generally maintained throughout life with a few exceptions if the same group of birds is housed together. If a bird gets sick, it may go down in the pecking order. When the pecking order is first established, the fights to determine the order may be quite violent but once established, the subordinate bird normally just runs away from the dominant bird. When strangers are first mixed together, they will fight to establish pecking order. Usually, fighting is not done to cause harm to the other bird but simply to determine pecking order. Fighting is usually more severe among males than among females. In large groups of commercial turkeys, pecking orders may occur in a portion of the building and the birds generally stay in that part of the building. Knowledge of the behavior of turkeys can be useful in reducing stress of birds grown under commercial conditions.
     Reproduction in birds is stimulated by the length of the light day. In wild turkeys, as the length of the light day increases in the spring, hormones associated with reproduction increase in the bird and the males become more aggressive and may fight to reestablish a peck order and the right to mate females. When fighting for male dominance, the birds try to damage the secondary sexual characteristics (snood and tissues around the head) so that the bird being attacked is not attractive to females. If a male loses these fights and has damage to the snood and soft tissue around the head, usually the other males will leave him alone. In other words, turkey males do not fight to the death of the other. Sometimes death of a male does occur due to consequences of fighting but this is not the intention of the aggressive male.
     Wild turkeys make their nests on the forest floor. They often lay 10-12 eggs in a clutch and it takes 28 days for turkey eggs to hatch. The hen turkey rolls the eggs several times during the day while incubating the eggs and only leaves the nest for short periods of time. Commercially, turkey eggs are placed in incubators and hatchers to hatch the eggs. These are machines that have careful control of temperature and humidity and turn the eggs periodically during the day. The laying commercial turkey hen quite often has the desire to set on the eggs. This is called going broody. These hens will nest frequently and will get very protective of the nest. Broody hens are a problem commercially, because when a turkey hen goes broody she stops laying eggs, which is undesirable from a commercial point of view.
     Many people think that turkeys are dumb animals. There are erroneous tales about turkeys. For example, it has often been repeated that turkeys reared outside, will often leave their shelter and drown in the rain. This is not true. It is true that turkeys will leave their shelter during a rain storm but the reason is so that the water will help clean their feathers. Turkeys are constantly trying to keep their feathers clean and in order. They have an activity termed preening in which they get oil from a small gland in front of their tail and spread it on their feathers with their beak.
     The turkey is a very interesting animal both in the wild and when grown commercially. A little time spent observing turkey behavior can be quite rewarding.