Turkeys are curious, intelligent birds that benefit significantly from environmental enrichment — yet most commercial operations provide barren environments that lead to harmful behaviours.
In barren environments, turkeys redirect their natural pecking and exploratory drives onto each other, causing injury and death. Beak trimming is a painful intervention that addresses the symptom rather than the cause. Enrichment that provides legitimate targets for pecking, exploration, and activity reduces cannibalism significantly while also improving welfare. The commercial turkey industry has been slower to adopt enrichment requirements than the laying hen sector, partly due to the short production cycle and lower per-bird value.