Why can't turkeys fly?

Question

Why can't turkeys fly?

Answer 1

Wild turkeys can fly. However, they don't typically fly more than a quarter mile or higher than fifty feet up. In fact, wild turkeys can fly up to 50mph.

Domesticated turkeys cannot fly though. Due to husbandry techniques that enhance muscle volume, they are simply too heavy to fly.

Answer 2

Can Domestic Turkeys Fly

Answer 3

Ben Franklin thought the North American wild turkey should be the national bird. Of course, the turkey of his day was nothing like the domesticated descendants we know today. The wild turkey of Ben Franklin's day was a brightly plumed, cunning bird of flight.

Unlike eagles, turkeys live in flocks. Imagine seeing a flock of birds as large as turkeys flying across the sky. It must have been a wondrous sight. Wild turkeys have longer necks and legs as well as smaller breasts than turkeys bred for the table. The true American turkey was "wild and wary to the point of genius,"
Today's turkeys are domesticated and are now bread to produce more white meat. in other words....BIGGER AND FATTER, so, then its no wonder, that turkeys, especially tame ones, cannot fly !

Answer 4

We raise turkeys on our farm. They fly quite well. Double Breasted Turkeys (Think Butterball) lose the ability to fly once their body weight exceeds the ability of their bone structure to give them lift. Even then they can often get up and over pasture fences. Other varieties, like Black Spanish, Bourbon Red, etc. fly very well and often roost in trees at night. Any hunter will confirm that wild turkeys fly quite well and quite quickly. Simply put, unless their wings are clipped, turkeys can, and will, fly.

Answer 5

Turkeys CAN fly. I have seen them flying out in the wild.

Answer 6

Of course turkeys can fly. Talk to any hunter, myself included. In fact, yesterday on first day of buck a turkey bust from the underbrush and took off throught the woods!

Answer 7

Sorry but turkeys CAN FLY We lived out in bowie texas and their were wild turkeys flying in to use our drive way back and forth to the pond for water and they flew in landed and walked to the pond then flew away right out of the pond, so yes wild turkeys can fly and your mother is right SHE DID SEE THE TURKEY FLY, you are the one who is wrong here. Just because you didn't see it and she did doesn't mean she didn't see it, we saw them all the time!

Answer 8

>Turkeys fly very well in the wild. If you are talking about commercially raised turkeys, they don't fly well because their wind-loading is too high.<

Answer 9

Wild turkeys can.
Domesticated ones weigh like 20+ pounds and have the wings of gnats...same reason ostriches chickens and emus dont fly.

Answer 10

Wild turkeys can fly. Domestic turkeys have been bred to have a heavier breast and can not fly.