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Heritage Breed Turkeys

For this years turkeys we chose Heritage Breed. Theses birds have not been genetically altered and are much like the birds one would find in the wild, only these have had a very good life. They forage for a portion of each day and then are feed a high protein feed as well. Heritage breed birds take longer to mature than the white birds that we raised the first year we did this and are able to reproduce. The white birds cannot reproduce on their own and it is difficult for their legs to support the heavier weights they attain. These birds mature at around 10-15 pounds unlike the white birds who can easily weight 25-40 pounds. The heritage birds provide a more moist meat and are typically more tender since they cook more quickly. At Thanksgiving we cooked 2 birds one at 6.55 and one at 7.5. I easily had as much meat as I would have on a single larger bird say in the 20-25 pound range. Yet they were done in only a couple of hours.
 As you can see they are really cute and look a great deal like all newborn birds. It would be hard to tell them at this point from chickens but it only takes a few days to a week and it becomes clear they are   turkeys.

 

Theses little babies arrived barely more than 24 hour after hatching and we went to the post office to retrieve them. They were so cute.