FOOD NEWS
The Guinness World Record For The Heaviest Turkey
By Elaina Friedman
Despite the avian flu causing turkey prices to skyrocket this year, Butterball (the brand of turkey) found that 90% of participants in its annual outlook report plan to buy a turkey that's either the same size or larger than last year's. However, you’re wrong if you assumed America is the only place breeding hulking poultry, as The Guinness Book of World Records says something else.
According to Guinness, the World Record for the heaviest-dressed turkey has been unmatched since 1989, and it goes to a gobbling gentleman named Tyson, who weighed a whopping 86 pounds. Guinness writes that he was sold at auction for charity in London that year for £4,400, or $6,692, and was reared by Philip Cook of Leacroft Turkeys Limited in Peterborough, U.K.
Per the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, the average turkey clocked in around 13 pounds in the 1930s, and turkey farms now raise birds that are more than double that size. The outlet adds that larger birds also tend to be more susceptible to illness, which might explain the current Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza going around on U.S. turkey farms.