Observations of Male Turkey Mating Behavior in a Commercial Breeding Flock

BREEDERS in recent years have made remarkable improvement in mature body weight, growth rate and conformation of turkeys. It is well known that the commercial strains which rank highest in the characters mentioned above suffer almost without exception from low fertility. This has been attributed by some to incompatibility of body shape and size to the natural act of mating. It is probably true that a small turkey resembling the “wild” type is less awkward and, therefore, more efficient in performing the mating act than a large broad breasted turkey. Some large turkey males of excellent meat type have been observed to mate efficiently, however, so that the possibility suggests itself that defective mating behavior and/or low fertility is a result of lack of selection for these factors on the part of breeders. Much of the improvement which has been made in the highly heritable traits such as size and …