The riddle
Why Did the Turkey Cross the Road?
The chicken gets a day off
The most common answer says the turkey crossed because it was the chicken's day off. The joke assumes that crossing the road is the chicken's regular job, so a turkey doing it must be covering a shift. It only works because everyone already knows the chicken question.
Answers that vary
Tellers give other punch lines too. The most frequent is that the turkey wanted to prove it was not chicken, a pun on the word for cowardly. Joke columns have printed that one since at least the 1970s, according to Barry Popik's research. Another, from a 1993 joke book, says the chicken retired and moved to Florida. Any of these answers is fine when the group agrees on it.
The question behind it
J. Gilchrist Lawson's 1924 book of conundrums asks "Why does a hen cross the road?" and answers "To get on the other side." The turkey version borrows that frame and swaps the bird.
Swapping the bird
Because the road is just a frame, the bird can be swapped. A duck, a goose or a hen all fit, and each needs its own reason. The turkey earns the day-off answer because the chicken is the bird that normally gets the question.
Thanksgiving timing
This joke is a favorite in late November. In the United States, Thanksgiving falls on the fourth Thursday of November, a rule Congress set in 1941, so in 2026 it lands on the 26th.