This is too funny. Male turkeys are mostly gentle compared to their chicken counterparts. Those guys virtually rape their ladies all the time!
My 8 month old tom is gentle to a fault. He can strut all day and forget to eat. The hen are always hard to get. The only exception is when the hen are on heat. Any other day, the tom is left so horribly lonely that I feel for him.
There is a reason why the female turkeys will not want the tom to mate with her all the time. After each bout of sex, the female comes out worse. They are mostly left with messy scratches on the upper part of the body.
I don't have personal experience but I have met farmers who lost a hen or two after mating. This is due to the massive weight of the male. The weight can lead to internal injuries to the female leading to death.
The mating ritual of turkeys take quite a long time. However the actual intercourse is supposed to last for just a fraction of a second. This though is not always the case.
The male sometimes have a hard time positioning himself probably on the hen. This increases the time that the tom stays on the female. This can lead to suffocation.
Losing an adult turkey is one of the difficult times as a farmer. As much as possible, try and keep an eye on the mating pairs to avoid unnecessary loss of flock.
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