Do turkeys drown in the rain?

Answer 1

It is false. What started this saying was when baby turkeys are born, they do not have feathers. Mothers would huddle there chicks in there feathers when storms hit. The chicks would die from exposure to the weather. It started when farmers found there turkeys drinking falling water when raining and found dead chicks thinking that they drown from the rain when in reality they died from weather. Besides if that were true, we wouldn't have an overpopulation of turkey's.

Answer 2

"Of course, all this progress has a price. Intelligence, for example, seems to have been lost in breeding. In a forthright 1947 manual on turkey farming, author G.T. Klein allows that, although wild turkeys are "wild and wary to the point of genius," those who raise domesticated turkeys "will be disgusted with their dumbness." The old canard about turkeys drowning in a rainstorm has more than a grain of truth: young turkeys don't know enough to seek shelter from the rain, and farm-raised turkeys don't have their mothers around to teach them. Before the age of eight or nine weeks, when their down is replaced by feathers, they are likely to die of exposure (not drowning) if they get wet. It's the same story with food: the poults (turkey chicks) must be taught to eat or they'll starve, even if they're surrounded by feed. In the wild, their mothers teach them. Turkey farmers make use of poults' natural attraction to bright colours: marbles or strips of foil are placed into their food, or their food is sprayed with green food colouring. In pecking at the colours, the turkeys learn to eat. Some never catch on and die; these are called 'starve-outs.' "

From howstuffworks.com:

Although turkeys sometimes do tilt their heads up at the sky and remain there for several moments, scientists say the idea that turkeys drown that way is just a myth.

Answer 3

No. This is a myth with no basis in fact. It is deliberately hyperbolic in its suggestion that turkeys (especially domestic ones) are inherently stupid.

Answer 4

The story is true.

Though, the turkey must have its mouth open, it can't just look up at the sky and drown.

Answer 5

A turkey cannot drown if it looks up at the rain.

Answer 6

Yes, they can and do.

Answer 7

Only if the sky is fallen

Answer 8

no

Answer 9

yes