You might have heard that a turkey will be pardoned on the lawn of the White House this afternoon. Presidential turkey pardoning is one of the most peculiar customs of the American Thanksgiving experience. You would think that the President of the United States would have better things to do than to spend time pronouncing clemency to a stupid bird! Where did this oddball tradition get its start?

Like a lot of American traditions, no one is quite sure which president was the first to pardon a turkey. When the United States was more of an agrarian society, it was quite common for people to send farm products, including live animals, to the White House as gifts. It is said that a turkey was sent to President Lincoln as a Christmas gift in 1863. His son, Tad, took a liking to the bird – whom he had named "Jack” - and Lincoln wrote a reprieve for the bird which Tad proudly marched to the White House kitchen and presented to the cook. Through the years, other animals have shown up at the White House that subsequent presidents have turned into pets rather than eating them. That includes a live raccoon – intended to be served as a meal - from Mississippi that was sent to President Calvin Coolidge in 1926.

The long-running tradition of a turkey being presented to the president on Thanksgiving seems to have its roots in a Rhode Island poultry farmer named Henry Vose. Vose supplied a turkey to the White House for 40 Thanksgivings in a row, starting with the Grant administration in 1873. After Vose died in 1913, the tradition faded away until the Poultry and Egg National Board presented Harry Truman with a turkey in 1947. Since then, the National Turkey Federation has also been involved in supplying the president with a Thanksgiving turkey every November. In 1963, President Kennedy was given a very large 55 pound bird, which he sent back to the farm that raised it, quipping, "We’ll let this one grow!” The first president to officially pardon a turkey was Ronald Reagan in 1987, when he declared that Charlie the Turkey’s death sentence was being commuted and Charlie would live out his days in a petting zoo. However, the president that really got the annual event rolling was President George H.W. Bush. In every year of his presidency, he pardoned a turkey. Every president since then has pardoned the White House turkey annually as well as its first runner-up. (There are always two turkeys presented to the White House in case one happens to get sick and cannot perform their poultry duties!)

So what happens to a pardoned turkey? They have been sent to farms, zoos, and even Disney World. This year’s turkeys are heading to college – to Virginia Tech - to live in a newly constructed Gobbler’s Rest viewing area. And the birds will live out their lives there, which probably means until next summer if they are lucky. What? All the pardoned presidential turkeys are not living a long life of leisure? The truth is, a long life for a domesticated turkey is less than two years. In fact, the oldest presidential turkey is two-year old Cheese, who was the 2014 presidentially pardoned turkey. Turkeys hatched in the spring are fully grown in about 5 months. The turkey you are eating on Thursday was a newly hatched chick right after Memorial Day. So the presidential pardon is not the reprieve on life that it’s cracked up to be if you’re a turkey. It just gets you past prime turkey eating holidays. What kills most pardoned turkeys? They tend to have heart ailments and commonly die of heat stroke due to their large size. It’s the same thing that will do you in if you eat too much on Thanksgiving!