There is little question that the commercially grown turkey is, pound for pound, one of nature’s less intelligent creatures, at least according to an article I once read. In that article, author Fred McGuiness calls the domesticated turkey "as brainless as a baseball," and describes how turkeys can have trouble doing even simple things.

For example, your average turkey can get into trouble doing something as simple as eating. Turkeys have been known to starve to death right next to a mountain of food. But other times they will eat so much so quickly that grain will fill their gullets and they die by choking. Drinking water can be a problem for turkeys, too. Farmers frequently find them drowned in shallow troughs. If a turkey is outdoors, looking up at the sky when it starts to rain, and i…