Turkey: Kosher or Not?

(11) You may eat any clean bird. (12) The following you may not eat: the eagle, the vulture, and the black vulture; (13) the kite, the falcon, and the buzzard of any variety; (14) every variety of raven; (15) the ostrich, the nighthawk, the sea gull, and the hawk of any variety; (16) the little owl, the great owl, and the white owl; (17) the pelican, the bustard, and the cormorant; (18) the stork, any variety of heron, the hoopoe, and the bat. (19) All winged swarming things are unclean for you: they may not be eaten. (20) You may eat only clean winged creatures.

The Gemara responds: It is learned as a tradition that there are twenty-four non-kosher birds, and four signs of a kosher bird. The same three signs can be found in all of them, with the exception of either the peres or the ozniyya. Twenty of them have all three signs, and two of those signs can be found in a crow. One sign is found in a peres and one in an ozniyya, and the sign present in this is absent in that, i.e., one of them has the fourth sign, which is absent from the other twenty-three non-kosher birds. Lest you say: Derive from it that any other bird with only that sign is non-kosher, the Merciful One wrote about the nesher to indicate: It is a nesher, which has none of the signs of a kosher bird, that you shall not eat. But if there is any bird that has even one of the signs, you may eat it.

Alternatively, the phrase “after its kinds” is written to include the white senunit and teach that it is non-kosher; this is the statement of Rabbi Eliezer. The Rabbis said to him: But don’t the people of the upper Galilee eat it, because its gizzard can be peeled? Rabbi Eliezer said to them: They too will be judged in the future for their transgression. In any event, the baraita indicates that other non-kosher birds exist that have two signs, like the crow. The Gemara responds: Rather, Rav Naḥman must have meant that one must be able to recognize the well-known crow and all other species of crow.

Anyone who is an expert in those types and their names, behold he eats all of the birds that are not from them, and he doesn't need checking. (Ibid.) And a kosher bird is eaten according to tradition, and that is the clear thing in that place that it is a kosher bird. And the hunter is believed saying: This bird, my hunting rabbi permitted for me, since that hunter is known to be in an expert in non-kosher types that are mentioned in the Torah and their names. Someone who does not know them and does not know their names, he should check the signs: every bird that is a bird of prey and he eats [it], and it is known that it is of non-kosher types. And if he does not know if it is a bird of prey or not, if, when they stand it up with wire, split along its legs, two fingers here and two fingers here, or it is [a bird that] clutches from the air and he eats [it], it is known that it is a bird of prey. If it is known that it is not a bird of prey, there are three signs of [its] kosher [status]: an extra finger, a crop [digestive pouch near gullet], and its gizzard is peeled by hand, excluding if it was only peeled with a knife. (See the Mechaber) If it hardened and was attached, and he placed it in the sun and it healed and then it was peeled by hand, behold this is a sign of [it being] kosher. And even though it has these three signs, it should not be eaten, because we are concerned lest it is a bird of prey, rather, unless they have a tradition that was transmitted to them by their ancestors that it is kosher. (See Rambam Forbidden Foods 1:18).

There are those who say that all birds that have a wide beak and the palm of its foot is wide like a goose, and it is known that it is not a bird of prey, and is permitted to eat if it has the three signs on its body. Gloss: And there are those who say that we don't rely even on this, and one should only eat a bird with an accepted tradition that it is kosher (in the Arukh...) and we are accustomed to this and it should not be changed.