Farm-raised turkeys account for about 97% of the entire population of turkeys in the United States. If you are having turkey at your 2024 Thanksgiving dinner, it almost certainly came from a farm.
Of the 205 million turkeys raised on U.S. farms during 2024, 180 million were raised in just 13 states. Which state do you suppose your Thanksgiving turkey came from?
Until "Big Turkey" starts putting that information on their packaging labels, you're simply going to have to play the odds. To make that easier, we've generated the following interactive map which identifies the top turkey-producing states of the U.S. and indicates the number of turkeys raised on farms within them.
When you play the odds, you'll find there is a one-in-six probability that the turkey on your table will have come from 2024's top producer of farm-raised turkeys: Minnesota.
If you want to get odds that are more in your favor, there's a better than 50% chance your turkey will have come from one of four states: Minnesota, North Carolina, Arkansas, or Indiana. Meanwhile, the odds are a little better than one-in-three that it came from either California, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Virginia, or West Virginia. Not to mention a one-in-eight probability it came from a turkey farm in any of the other 37 states.
References
U.S. Department of Agriculture. World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE - 654). U.S. Quarterly Animal Product Production. Nov Proj. Turkey (Ready To Cook Weight, millions of pounds). [PDF Document]. 8 November 2024.
Image Credit: Microsoft Copilot Designer. Prompt: "A picture of a turkey looking at a map of the United States".