Laura Yuen: 48,000 fans, zero game. Will Lloyd, Minnesota's most famous turkey, ever get the girl?

Arguably the most famous bachelor turkey in all of Minnesota is a handsome idiot named Lloyd.

Lloyd has a global Facebook fan base of about 48,000 who've followed his ridiculous exploits on the farm, such as cluelessly romancing basketballs, sticks and other inanimate objects. Never in his eight years has he been spotted properly mating with an actual turkey. His owner is determined to see if he could learn new tricks in his older age and find true companionship.

You see, Lloyd the pet turkey is lonely. Last fall on the Dalarna Farm - Heather Benson's 65 acres in rural Lac qui Parle County, three hours west of Minneapolis - the last of Benson's turkey hens died. Lloyd sank into a long depression. Typically content to spend his days strutting for no one in particular, Lloyd stopped his swagger. He barely ate or socialized with his chicken friends. He slept in.

"I was genuinely afraid he would die of sadness," Benson recalls.

He eventually snapped out of his funk. But with the spring thaw, Lloyd began to make poor decisions. He would wander away from the farmyard, edging toward the vast prairie surrounding it, where a coyote or bald eagle could strike.

Benson was convinced Lloyd was beckoning female turkeys from the wild. But his approach to looking for love was going to get him killed.

Lloyd is a chaotic protagonist in a story about male loneliness, internet celebrity culture and the depths of human devotion for the animals we love.

In Minnesota, which produces more turkeys than any state, Lloyd is probably the only one to have his own 16-page literary magazine, called Snood, referring to the fleshy attachment to a male turkey's beak that can become engorged and turn bright red when aroused. Female turkeys prefer dudes with long snoods. (I learned about the organ from Benson, whom I suspected was pulling my leg, until an internet rabbit hole confirmed it was all true.)

Lloyd is also probably the only resident turkey whose likeness is printed onto T-shirts donned by people as far away as Copenhagen. He is our avian version of Punch the Monkey. He's odd, hilarious and relatable - much like Benson.

Erin Shadle, a therapist from Asheville, N.C., stumbled upon Benson's writings online several years ago while she was struggling with a personal loss. She was familiar with wild turkeys in her city but not about domestic ones like Lloyd. A post about his antics and failed romantic relationships "was exactly the humor I needed," she says.

"He bumbles unapologetically through life. He tries so hard to be a turkey and do his best," Shadle tells me. "He's like so many of us. We try to put the pieces of life together, and we don't get it quite right. But he doesn't care. He's going to do what he wants to do. I wish we could all be so true to ourselves."

It helps, she adds, that Benson adores him, not in spite of his awkwardness, but perhaps because of it. Lloyd will always be cared for.

"May we all be so lucky," Shadle says.

Sensing Lloyd's desire for a new friend, Benson posted singles ads on farming Facebook groups in hopes of procuring a new turkey bride. She even drove two hours east to a bird swap meet in Hutchinson, Minn. That's where I first met Benson, who arrived in her Kia Soul with a cage full of hope. The cage followed her home, empty. Breeders showed off their pigeons and roosters, but no turkeys were for sale.

The single promising lead she left with - the phone number of a southeast North Dakota turkey farmer who swore he'd be in touch - evaporated when the farmer stopped responding to Benson's texts. It dawned on her that even turkeys can be ghosted in modern dating.

But weeks later, Benson returned to Hutchinson and bought two sister hens from another breeder for $50 apiece. Her daughter named them Lulu and Libby.

Benson kept followers of her Dalarna Farm page on Facebook abreast of the developments. Most had been reading Benson's stories about Lloyd for years, chuckling over his obliviousness and, um, affection for leather Wilson basketballs. In one spectacular failure described by Benson, Lloyd mounted a hen but fell asleep on her before he could finish the deed.

Upon hearing about Lulu and Libby, readers cheered on Lloyd, hoping for a fairy-tale ending.

"I'm rooting for a beautiful love story for Lloyd that doesn't involve sports equipment!" one fan chimed.

Benson says she started writing her observations about farm life to relieve stress. She grew up with a mom who struggled with borderline personality disorder and alcoholism, so chaos was Benson's baseline. Running a farm today feels comfortably normal.

If you tend to a ragtag crew of guinea fowl, ducks, horses, dogs, cats, sheep and turkeys, "silly drama and horrible drama happen every day," says Benson, who is 45. "Where there's livestock, there's deadstock. Accidents happen. Weird stuff happens."

The tagline on Benson's Substack and social media accounts, "Hogs, horses and hilarity reside here," belies the tenderness and bittersweetness that at times tinge her writing. Though she describes them as "50 souls with bad ideas," these animals have gotten her through tough winters, the deaths of friends and a divorce. Hard decisions need to be made about whether an animal lives or dies, so good days are not taken for granted.

Benson's accounts fascinate city folk like me, who never thought about turkey sex, and resonate with anyone who has unconditionally cared for an exasperating animal.

When photographer Elizabeth Flores and I roll up to the long dirt driveway leading to Benson's farm, one thing we are not prepared for is the indisputable fact that Lloyd is a stunner. His white tail feathers, ringed with black like a single stripe on the collar of a country-club polo shirt, are already fanned out as he greets us near the farmhouse.

Moments later, he is humping a weed. The day before, he was seen seducing a bag of cement.

Still, Lloyd is mesmerizing by any measure. Get close to a turkey strutting, and you can hear a low thumping sound deep in his chest. Turkeys "drum," as it's called, to attract mates or establish dominance. Lloyd follows us everywhere on a 90-degree day, thumping and humping.

Until this point, the sister wives, Lulu and Libby, have not met Lloyd. They've been quarantining the past two weeks in a trailer. They're domestic turkeys, known as bourbon reds, identifiable by their reddish-brown hue.

"They're the color of basketballs, which might work in our favor," Benson says hopefully.

She warns me that we're not expecting Lloyd and the gals to make a big to-do, the way dogs excitedly sniff and greet each other face to face. Parallel play, the way toddlers co-exist, is the best-case scenario.

Benson unlatches the door to the trailer as Lloyd lurks close by. I start shooting video on my phone. Lulu doesn't leave the trailer. But Libby hops out and immediately squats on the grass.

"OK, she's asking him to mate with her," Benson narrates, as if we are witnessing a key scene in a David Attenborough film. "Oh, my. Things are moving quickly."

Sure enough, Lloyd beelines over and climbs onto her, nearly toppling Libby, who is a third of his size. His claws dig into her back, and he falls off a few times. Loose feathers fly into the wind. "It's not graceful," Benson adds.

But Lloyd and Libby are, unmistakably, mating. Their tail feathers kiss before the birds decouple, apparently satisfied. In the end, Lloyd the underdog got the girl.

Lloyd's mom is astonished. Benson later posts a video of the tryst, and his fans celebrate. They want to know what happens next. Will there be babies? Did Lloyd know what to do all along?

Benson will write it all down, as she always does. In a life where painful stories are never far off, an absurd turkey romance is something people can hold onto. It's proof that even the most hapless among us can find connection, if someone cares enough to see it through.

And, yes, eventually, someone will have to break the news to the basketball.

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This story was originally published May 6, 2026 at 4:30 AM.