As I understand it, modern day turkeys are bred to gain weight very quickly and with freakishly disproportionate white (breast, meat.
This makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to breed naturally. They are manually inseminated by humans. Very labor intensive=very expensive.
And, as previously mentioned, they want to turn those eggs into more freakishly large turkeys for the dinner table.
It’s also not too common knowledge that over the years, the turkeys recieving the much publicized Presidential Pardon aren’t really spared much.
They end up at a petting zoo/ farm and are fortunate if they last a year. Most don’t because with their disproportionately large size, they can barely walk and their lungs can barely function due to all that extra weight pushing on them. So they basically die from gradual asphyxiation. Obviously this doesn’t get much publicity :)
Altho I haven’t read it yet, I would assume much of that is covered in the book which Gail referenced.
Ahhh, the joys of factory farming ~~