Utahns Love Eating Turkey, What About Their Eggs?

Utah is pretty traditional when it comes to holiday meals. We expect seeing a turkey on the table during Thanksgiving dinner and deviled eggs are no surprise. What we don’t ever see is a turkey deviled egg. You can find chicken eggs, of course, and now duck and quail eggs are becoming more available, but no eggs from a turkey. 

Do turkeys even lay eggs? Yes, they do. In fact, according to Modern Farmer the eggs are delicious. So, why don’t we eat the eggs? You would think all those turkey farmers in Sanpete County could double their money collecting eggs to sell while they grow the turkeys big enough for dinner. 

The answer is turkey eggs cost a lot more to produce. They begin laying eggs later in life, they only lay a couple a week, and it takes up a lot of space. For this reason, a turkey egg can cost as much as $3 per egg and you can get a whole lot more chicken eggs for that price.  

Since I have never even wondered about the availability of turkey eggs, there’s probably not a big demand. I’m probably more interested in a giant deviled egg from an emu sitting on the table. Not that I would eat any of it. It sounds kind of gross. 

There are other parts of the turkey that are useful. Native Americans used the feathers from wild turkeys for ceremonial clothing and they made whistles from the turkey wing bones. I think the kids table would be even more entertaining if each had a turkey wing bone whistle.