Turkeys

Tomas, our handsome man.  Male turkeys are the body builders of the poultry world.  He walks around puffed up all day.  

When I decided to get turkeys I did a lot of research.  You hear a lot of stories about people raising turkeys so large they can’t walk.  I didn’t want that.  Or they fly up onto a fence and when they go to fly off they fall and bruise the breast meat or break ribs.  Again didn’t want that. 

I like the idea of Heritage Animals, animals that can do what animals have been doing for centuries.  Have their own babies, eat, get fat, breed, and grow old without a lot of help from humans.  We chose our cattle breed for their personality traits, taste, milking ability, and mothering ability.  The sheep we chose for their cuteness – but if I do breed them Shetland sheep and Pelibuey Sheep are supposed to not need a lot of assistance giving birth and be disease resistant.  Heritage cattle and sheep are pretty much the same animals that could have come over with the pilgrims. 

So I looked up Heritage Turkeys and was shocked.  Most of the turkeys we buy at the grocery store are Broad Breasted Turkeys.  These turkeys have been raised to get big fast and have huge breasts, they have to be artificially inseminated.  They also are only meant to live to get big enough to be eaten so as they grow Broad Breasted Turkeys can lose the ability to walk. 

A Heritage Turkey must be able to breed, raise it’s own  young, walk throughout it’s life, they live 3-7 years, and take over 6 months to reach eating weight. 

Our turkey hen sharing her coop with the chickens while everyone is free ranging.