The tradition of eating Turkey at Christmas became popular back in the 19th Century when King Edward Vll reigned.
Today approximately 10 million of these beautiful birds are killed in the UK, for the purpose of being the centrepiece food on the dinner table during the Christmas meal.
In order for there to be enough of these birds ready for this season, the turkeys are manipulated genetically and fed drugs to enable them to grow very large as quickly as possible.
They have actually increased in size by over 40% within the last 50 years.
Unfortunately the additional body weight is not natural and their legs are not strong enough to hold it. Therefore many of their legs actually break due to the immense strain they are under.
The way the majority of turkeys are reared are within sheds with no access to outside. They are packed in close confinement with each other with very little space to move. To prevent injury from beaks and claws, due to the crammed conditions, the farmers snap parts of the birds beaks off and cut off their toes. This is done mostly without any painkillers.
Unfortunately after this brutal existence they are slaughtered. At around 6 months they are little more than babies, yet this is the age that their lives are taken from them. Naturally they can live up to 10 years in the wild.
Turkeys are a bird that are so highly associated to food at Christmas that people are often surprised to find out that they are very intelligent. In fact there are quite a few You Tube videos knocking about of them actually playing computer games!
When they exist in their natural habitat they display very complex social skills and create strong bonds with their family members. They are also extremely fast and people don't tend to know that they can actually fly.
Click on the link below to read about how incredible these gorgeous birds really are.
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