The Midget White is a

breed A breed is a specific group of breedable domestic animals having homogeneous appearance (phenotype), homogeneous behavior, and/or other characteristics that distinguish it from other organisms of the same species. In literature, there exist seve ...

domestic turkey The domestic turkey (''Meleagris gallopavo domesticus'') is a large fowl, one of the two species in the genus ''Meleagris'' and the same species as the wild turkey. Although turkey domestication was thought to have occurred in central Mesoamerica ...

named for its

white White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

plumage and small stature. The breed is the smallest standard variety of turkey, and with toms at roughly 13 lbs and hens 8-10 lbs, it weighs only slightly more than the largest chickens. A rare

heritage turkey A heritage turkey is one of a variety of strains of domestic turkey which retains historic characteristics that are no longer present in the majority of turkeys raised for consumption since the mid-20th century. Heritage turkeys can be different ...

breed, the Midget White is classified as "Critical" by the

American Livestock Breeds Conservancy The Livestock Conservancy, formerly known as the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (ALBC) and prior to that, the American Minor Breeds Conservancy, is a nonprofit organization focused on preserving and promoting rare breeds, also known as ...

. It is also included in the

Ark of Taste The Ark of Taste is an international catalogue of endangered heritage foods which is maintained by the global Slow Food movement. The Ark is designed to preserve at-risk foods that are sustainably produced, unique in taste, and part of a distin ...

, a catalog of foods in danger of extinction. The Midget White is sometimes shown in the same class as the

Beltsville Small White The Beltsville Small White is a modern American breed of domestic turkey. It was developed from 1934 at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center of the United States Department of Agriculture in Beltsville, Maryland, and was named for that t ...

, but despite the similarity was bred from different lines, mostly white commercial turkeys and the

Royal Palm ''Roystonea regia'', commonly known as the royal palm, Cuban royal palm, or Florida royal palm, is a species of Arecaceae, palm native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Florida, and parts of Central America. A large and attractive palm, it has been plan ...

. A newcomer among turkey breeds, it was originally developed in the 1960s by Dr. J. Robert Smyth at the

University of Massachusetts Amherst The University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMass Amherst) is a public land-grant research university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. It is the flagship campus of the University of Massachusetts system and was founded in 1863 as the ...

as a smaller complement to the

Broad Breasted White The Broad Breasted White is commercially the most widely used breed of domesticated turkey. These birds have shorter breast bones and larger breasts, sometimes rendering them unable to breed without human assistance (typically via artificial inse ...

. This anticipated demand never surfaced, and along with other rare breeds the Midget White declined as a result. The turkey is relatively friendly and is especially well-suited to being raised on small farms and on a

homestead Homestead may refer to: *Homestead (building), a farmhouse and its adjacent outbuildings; by extension, it can mean any small cluster of houses * Nguni homestead, a cluster of houses inhabited by a single extended family, typically with a kraal ...

. The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

reported in 2014 that Midget White turkeys were thought to be

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

until about 90 of them were found in

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

References

External links

White Midget Turkeys
Feathersite.com Conservation Priority Breeds of the Livestock Conservancy Turkey breeds originating in the United States {{poultry-stub

See also

References

External links