Come Thanksgiving turkey takes center stage. Families across America gather around juicy golden-brown birds, eager to dig in to a quintessential holiday feast. But have you ever wondered just how hefty the world’s most massive turkey gets? Turns out, the largest turkey ever raised weighs as much as some children!
Let’s explore the extremes of turkey tonnage and find out who holds the record for the heaviest turkey in history.
The Turkey heavyweight Champion
According to Guinness World Records, the heaviest turkey ever documented was a gigantic male named Tyson, raised in the United Kingdom. This mega-gobbler tipped the scales at a whopping 86 pounds when officially weighed in 1989.
To put that into perspective, the average turkey served for Thanksgiving meals weighs 15-20 pounds. So Tyson was over 4 times larger than typical holiday birds!
At 86 pounds, Tyson outweighed
- An average 3-year-old toddler
- A petite 5th grader
- An average baby hippo
- A dozen bowling balls
This beefy bird was truly in a league of his own when it comes to poultry tonnage
Who Was Tyson the Turkey?
Tyson’s owner, Philip Cook, raised him at Leacroft Turkeys Ltd. in Peterborough, England. Leacroft had a long history of breeding prize-winning giant turkeys.
In 1989, Tyson won the annual “heaviest turkey” competition held in London, earning him the Guinness World Record. He instantly became a national celebrity!
After his record-setting weigh-in, Tyson was sold at a charity auction for £4,400, or around $7,000 today. That’s over $80 per pound of turkey! His buyers surely had to reinforce their dining table to handle this chunky bird.
Why So Much Turkey?
So how did Tyson grow so unbelievably immense?
He was bred specifically to compete in heavyweight turkey contests. Breeders select the biggest birds from each generation to produce offspring with “big bird” genes.
Tyson likely had a genetic predisposition for rapid growth and high feed conversion efficiency. With plenty of food and room to grow, he was able to balloom to record-breaking proportions.
Modern Meat Birds
While Tyson represents an extreme, the average turkey size has increased dramatically over the past century:
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In the 1930s, commercial turkeys weighed about 13 pounds.
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Today, the average turkey weighs 30 pounds, over double the historical weight!
Through breeding and improved nutrition, turkeys now grow faster and heavier with less feed. However, some raise welfare concerns that modern meat birds grow too fast, causing leg problems and other health issues.
Clearly Tyson took the “big bird” genes to the max!
Previous Record Holders
Before Tyson, the heaviest turkey title belonged to another English tukey named Charmer, raised in 1986. Charmer weighed in at 78 pounds, breaking a 9-year record held by a Minnesota-raised turkey called Stu.
Until the 1960s, the longstanding record hovered around 45-50 pounds. But thanks to advanced breeding, feeding, and husbandry, turkey weights skyrocketed in recent decades.
Will Tyson’s milestone ever be surpassed? Only time will tell! For now, he remains the reigning heavyweight champion of the turkey world.
Heaviest Turkeys by Class
While Tyson tops the overall rankings, some record holders stand out in specific classes:
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Heaviest Commercial Turkey: 74.8 lbs, raised in Virginia in 2020.
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Heaviest Wild Turkey: 38 lbs, shot in Wisconsin in 2003.
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Heaviest Female Turkey: 45.6 lbs, from Minnesota in 2012.
Even the biggest commercial hens would be no match for Tyson!
Welfare Concerns of Overgrown Turkeys
However, many argue that extremely overweight turkeys suffer health and mobility problems. Some of the issues massive turkeys face include:
- Joint pain and leg deformities
- Heart and lung strain
- Reduced mating capability
- Susceptibility to heat stress
So while heavyweights like Tyson are remarkable biological feats, most experts agree moderation is best when it comes to turkey tonnage.
The Takeaway on huge Turkeys
Weighing as much as a small boulder, Tyson the turkey remains unrivaled as the world’s most massive gobbler. He stretched the limits of poultry potential to an astounding 86 pounds.
While jumbo-sized turkeys may seem impressive, bigger is not necessarily better when it comes to our feathery friends. Moderately sized birds around 15-25 pounds offer the best balance of health and holiday feasting!
So when shopping for your Thanksgiving turkey this year, keep Tyson’s record-shattering weight in mind. Unless you’re hosting a crowd of 200, an 86-pound bird is far more than you need! Stick to a reasonably sized main course and leave the turkey heavyweights to the history books.
NWTF World Record for Turkey with the Longest Beard
Turkey beards neither hang from the birdâs chin nor are they made of hair, but âbeardsâ is the term we use anyway. A beard is a mesofiloplume and may very well have much in common with the tufts of hairlike bristle found on some dinosaur fossils.
Beards never molt nor stop growing, but the tips wear, limiting their length. Eastern wild turkeys generally have the longest beards but long beards are found among all the subspecies. A beard grows out of a skin spot on the breast called a papilla. Both male and female turkeys have papillae, but only about 10 per cent of hens grow beards, and most are quite thin.
In his second year of turkey hunting near his home in New Boston, Texas, Cody May shot an eastern tom with a beard whose longest strands measured 22.5 inches at the check station. By the time he had the brittle beard measured again, it had broken off to 17.5 inches, which would have fallen short of the then-current record of 18.125, shot in Virginia in 1998. However, the original measurement counted as official, giving May the new top spot.
NWTF World Record for Turkey with the Longest Spurs
For a lot of hunters, spurs are the real measure of a trophy tom. A wild turkeyâs spurs are made of keratin, the same substance that makes up our hair and fingernails. Spurs grow longer and sharper with age, and toms use them as weapons as they fight for dominance. Osceolas are known for their long spurs, which is due in part to the fact that they live in an environment of soft and sandy soils that wonât wear or break off spurs. Incidentally, while most turkeys have two spurs, a very few mature birds have none, while some have multiple spurs. There are 15 birds registered with the NWTF records system that have six spurs apiece.
The longest spurs on record belonged to a tom taken in 2017 by Willard Dills of North Carolina, who was hunting around Cartoogechaye Township in the western part of the state. The spurs measured 2.5625 inches.
Heaviest Bull In The World | 1950kg Bull named Fetard | Rouge des Pres breed
What is the heaviest Turkey in the world?
The Guinness World Record for the heaviest turkey in all the land is actually held across the pond. According to Guinness, the World Record for the heaviest-dressed turkey has been unmatched since 1989. It goes to a gobbling gentleman named Tyson, who weighed a whopping 86 pounds.
How much does a wild turkey weigh?
The tom weighed 22 pounds and had a .9735 spur on one leg and a 1-inch spur on the other, making it the third highest-scoring turkey in the NWTF record system. 2. NWTF World Record for Heaviest Turkey The Eastern wild turkey is the heaviest of the subspecies, often weighing in excess of 25 pounds.
Was Tyson the heaviest Turkey ever recorded?
Tyson, from Peterborough in the United Kingdom, wasn’t any old bird. He was the heaviest turkey ever recorded, setting a Guinness World Record back on December 12, 1989, that has not been bettered to this day. Tyson belonged to Philip Cook of Leacroft Turkeys Limited, and was measured at a “greatest dressed weight” of 86 lbs (39 kg).
How much did the ‘heaviest Turkey’ win in 1989?
It won the last annual `heaviest turkey’ competition, held in London on 12 December 1989, and was auctioned for charity for a record £;4400 (then $6,692) Records change on a daily basis and are not immediately published online. For a full list of record titles, please use our Record Application Search.