slaughtered globally
Based on an annual estimate of approximately 504,128,000, derived from FAOSTAT — Production: Crops and livestock products.
Approximately 504.1 million turkeys were slaughtered worldwide for meat in 2024, according to FAOSTAT. That equals about 1.38 million per day and just under 16 per second. “Slaughtered” is FAO’s statistical term; “killed for meat” is the ordinary-language equivalent. Thanksgiving is a major seasonal period for turkey consumption in North America, but birds eaten for the holiday are not necessarily slaughtered on Thanksgiving Day.
FAOSTAT reports that 504,128,000 turkeys were slaughtered worldwide for meat in 2024. That is about 1,381,172 per day and just under 16 per second when the annual total is spread across a 365-day year. FAO records the measure as “Producing Animals/Slaughtered” for the item “Meat of turkeys, fresh or chilled,” in thousand animals. “Killed for meat” is the ordinary-language equivalent; “slaughtered” is the official statistical term.
Source: FAOSTAT — Production: Crops and livestock products (2024)
Thanksgiving is a major seasonal period for turkey consumption in the United States. For its 2025 holiday survey, the National Turkey Federation estimated that nearly 30 million turkeys would be enjoyed across the country for Thanksgiving. This is an industry trade-group estimate based on commissioned consumer research, not a USDA administrative count. It describes expected holiday consumption, not the number of birds slaughtered on Thanksgiving Day; birds served at the holiday may have been slaughtered earlier.
Source: National Turkey Federation — Thanksgiving consumer research (2025)
Statistics Canada publishes annual turkey production and sales, not an official count of turkeys eaten specifically for Canadian Thanksgiving. Its latest release reports 139.5 million kilograms of turkey production in Canada in 2025. Because that is an annual weight measure rather than a holiday-specific individual-bird count, this page does not convert it into or present a Canadian Thanksgiving turkey total.
Source: Statistics Canada — Poultry and egg statistics, 2025 (2025)
Baseline: FAOSTAT — Production: Crops and livestock products
Reference year: 2024
HumanConsumption.Live converts this authoritative annual estimate into a continuously updating rate across the current calendar year. The counter visualizes that pace; it is not a direct real-time measurement from the source organization.
Global counter definition: FAOSTAT — Production: Crops and livestock products (2024)
Dataset: Production: Crops and livestock products. Area: World. Item: “Meat of turkeys, fresh or chilled” (Item 1080). Element: “Producing Animals/Slaughtered” (Element 5321). Unit: thousand animals. The published value of 504,128 thousand animals equals 504,128,000 turkeys. The moving display calculates an annual rate from this value; it is not a real-time FAOSTAT feed.
United States and Thanksgiving context: USDA Economic Research Service / National Turkey Federation (2024–2025)
USDA reports 200 million U.S. turkeys produced in 2024. Separately, the National Turkey Federation’s November 2025 release says its commissioned survey estimated nearly 30 million turkeys would be enjoyed for Thanksgiving. These are different measures from each other and from FAOSTAT’s global slaughter measure. The National Turkey Federation figure is presented as an industry consumer-research estimate, not official government data.
Canadian seasonal limitation: Statistics Canada — Poultry and egg statistics (2025)
Statistics Canada reports 139.5 million kilograms of annual turkey production in 2025. It does not provide a verified holiday-specific count of individual turkeys eaten for Canadian Thanksgiving in the source reviewed here, so the page does not infer one.