I've kinda wondered about this for a while: Does a matriarch hen drive away sibling jakes before they breedwith their sisters (like whitetails), or are they allowed to stay in the same general geographic area?

Or do the males just recognize their family members and seek out non-family hens in the same area?

If they DO inbreed, wouldn't prolonged, repetitive generational inbreeding be a bad thing?


My interpretation of this article says that they do, but I'm not exactly sure how to interpret this data. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8650106

hm, thats a good question
i bet they do, not sure though

Depends on what state they are from? West Va, Kentucky, etc.

In a lot of states where turkeys have been reintroduced, I'd say the turkeys in any given area today have a pretty good chance of being related to each other, simply because they are descended from a limited number of stocked birds.

I don't know how hard the DNR triesto includetoms from one area, and hens from another, in the birds they stock. Maybe a good question for a CO.

I would imagine that it happens. I would think that the turnover rate for turkeys is pretty high though so there's always some fresh blood in the gene pool.

You owe me a new keyboard! I just spit Coke all over mine!

hahahahahaha

That was a good one!!!

I think i just peed a little

Yes, they do... ask a biologist