Have you ever considered the humble turkey as your next backyard pal?

Lyndsey Sumpton from the Australian Heritage Turkey Society said the fowls were keen to make friends and were just like having an "ugly parrot".

She wants more people to take an interest in heritage breeds and fears the bloodline is dying out because of a focus on breeding big birds for meat production.

"A lot of the heritage turkeys have been put to the side because they can't compete with the rapid growth and the size of the carcases that you get from broad-breasted commercial varieties," she told Margot Kelly on ABC Radio Hobart.

The gene pool of purebred turkeys is being kept alive on King Island, which Ms Sumpton believes is home to the only untouched bloodline of fowls in Australia that originated from the United States.

Lyndsey Sumpton wants more people to take an interest in turkeys. ( Facebook: Lyndsey Sumpton )

An island sanctuary

The large population of feral turkeys on the island off the north-west of Tasmania are certainly no mongrels.

Turkeys have been farmed there since the early 1900s, Ms Sumpton said.

In 1927 the local newspaper reported that breeder Ben Heddle imported a champion gobbler and the rest of the population was killed off for meat.

Now, Ms Sumpton hopes the island's purebred population could be preserved.

Along with the fowl's aesthetics, the meat was tastier too, she said.

From the 1950s there has been an emphasis on producing bigger, faster-growing birds for mass production.

"It loses a lot of the flavour because the meat is a lot fattier," Ms Sumpton said.

"They've been developed to grow fast and they aren't structurally sound."

If those turkeys weren't processed at five months old they wouldn't live past 18 months anyway, she said.

"Their heart and liver gets filled with fat and their bodies grow too fast for their bones."

The Island has been the perfect home for the purebred population to grow. ( Supplied: Heritage Turkey Assocation )

'Like having an ugly parrot'

Ms Sumpton said it was uncommon for people to keep heritage turkeys or maintain an interest in the birds.

She's one of a small group of people mapping the genetics, and spruiks the birds as good backyard pets.

"Unlike with chickens where you have a lot of fanciers who make sure they keep pure varieties, we don't have that with turkeys," she said.

She said turkeys loved company and would mob together in groups — even wild turkeys could be domesticated.

"They can't stand being alone," she explained.

"Chickens don't really do that, or ducks, but turkeys need to have a bond with something."

Ms Sumpton said the birds had a strong vocabulary and that you could "always tell what they were thinking".

"It's almost like having a really ugly parrot."

The turkeys on King Island are smaller than their mainland cousins. ( ABC Northern Tasmania: Rick Eaves )

'Exceptional quality' birds

Past residents of King Island paid top prices to import birds for breeding from the United States.

"The difference between them and the turkeys that are available in Australia is that the King Island turkeys have had the benefit of isolation," Ms Sumpton said.

"They started from scratch again and bred their birds from there.

"Because of the fact that the breeders on King Island disposed of all their previous birds, what we have over there is an isolated pocket of the only remaining American-imported turkeys in Australia."

The heritage turkeys on King Island are "exceptional quality" due to a lack of crossbreeding. ( Supplied: Melissa Bee via Heritage Turkey Society )

The result, she said, was exceptional-quality "bronze turkeys" roaming free, whose winning attributes were a small frame and neat stripes.

"I'm looking for a smaller-sized bird even though that may be not what is commercially acceptable," she said.

The birds weigh up to eight kilograms; their crossbred cousins on the mainland can measure 17kg.

She said crossbreeding had also made the turkey's stripes look "splotchy".