[shygirl]

so those who have reared their own turkeys this year, what are your weights? dead and dressed? breed? age?
we killed ours last night, have yet to weigh ours but would be good to compare.

[chrismahon]

We've just bought one reared locally and it weighs 4Kg dressed Shygirl. We were told they were going to be about 5Kg at slaughter. Ones available varied in weight when we went to collect from 3.7 to 4.3 Kg dressed. They are derived from the Norfolk Black and are called here 'Le Noir du Gers'.

[Paulie]

I'll let you know this evening 

[Paulie]

Mine are Norfolk bronze and The boys are 7.5kg oven ready and the girls are 4.5kg

[Daleswoman]

Mine were bronze girls and weighed 6.7lbs, 6.5lbs and 5.7lbs dressed weights. I was disappointed with the sizes to be honest, they'd been fed adlib growers pellets with occasional mixed corn and extra greens, and been shut in for the last 6 weeks on advice from an old farming friend, but they just didn't seem to have big appetites. The smallest one had been small from the start.

[Paulie]

That's a shame  daleswomen I can only assume shutting them in made the difference, the 5 of mine free ranged all day everyday for the 5/6 months I had them and they only ate 2 bags of grower and 1 bag of mixed corn ablib in all that time.

[chrismahon]

I'd have said that shutting your Turkeys in for the last 6 weeks would have a rather demoralising effect on them and they would stop eating and fret Daleswoman. That would cause them to lose weight. I can understand why the old friend suggested it- to keep the legs tender by restraining their movement and stop them using stored energy up. Perhaps the effect is breed related in that the old breeds certainly don't like any confinement, which is what I read about Turkeys in a 1938 book recently?

[shygirl]

my mini white hybrids finished at just over 5 kg dressed. plenty left over after feeding 9 people for 2 days. dogs were happy.

[Daleswoman]

I suspect you might be correct about shutting them in having upset them, although they didn't seem to eat much before that either!

However there was sufficient for 4 of us on Christmas Day, Boxing Day plus a turkey and ham pie on Sunday, and plenty of scraps for the dogs too. I'll start another thread about how to manage them next time, as I don't want to hijack Shygirl's!

[shygirl]

please go ahead x

[Daleswoman]

What did yours weigh in the end, Shygirl?

[shygirl]

5 kg oven ready.
it was interesting to weigh the butchered carcuss of the spare birds, as the breast weighed a good bit more than the legs, even including the leg bone. double breasted birds.
cant fault the mini white hybrids we get.
behaviour was excellent this year, even when we were dispatching, no one tried to escape or even move away. quite sad really. wintered out with the chickens, had their own shed but chose to sleep on the roof.
about 35kg of feed to finish. so worked out cheaper than buying from Tesco, id say.