10 Unbelievably Cruel Studies (Done In The Name Of Science)

6. Beheading Turkeys To Test Horniness

Apparently turkeys will sleep with just about anything. That's not a weird form of feathered slut shaming, that's just the truth. And the reason we know that to be true is because of an experiment conducted by Martin Schein and Edgar Hale of the University of Pennsylvania, a couple of scientists who were interested in studying the sexual peccadilloes of turkeys for reasons we think it's best not to ask about. The study began with a lifelike model of a female turkey which, apparently, was still enough for a male to try and mate with it. Didn't have to move, squawk or be noticeably breathing, and those horny buggers would try and mount it. From there Schein and Hale decided to see how far they could go with their model before the male turkeys would lose interest. Slowly they took away each piece of the female turkey doll until it was just a head on a stick. Turns out that male turkeys really aren't fussy, because even then they would try and do the horizontal mambo with a head on a stick - apparently preferable to a headless full body - and so they decided to press on. Then they started doing the same shtick, only with an actual, real female turkey. Which they slowly dismembered and offered up to the male turkeys for their consideration. Again, they got down to the point where they cut off a female turkey's head and stuck it on a stick, and still the males wanted to get jiggy with it. So this one was cruel in two ways: not only did they viciously slaughter a bunch of turkeys for a stupid study, but they also cursed a bunch of males with some serious blue balls.