[nutterly_uts]

Hello

Someone we know is running on huge numbers of Turkeys for Christmas using a commercial variety in an inside barn.

I've decided that next year I want to challenge them to a taste off. They don't know this yet

I know I am being early on planning for this but can someone advise a bit please

I would like recommendations as to which breed/s people think are the tastiest and also as I have never kept turkeys before, any tips, tricks and information I need. I understand they are much harder to keep than chickens and are more prone to problems. When will I need to set eggs in an incubator next year? I'm guessing I will need to book them from a good breeder?

We would like to raise ours outside if possible but as we are starting with a blank slate, we can pretty much do anything necessary long before we get them.

Thanks

[Womble]

Just a thought:  Why don't you get a few very young poults from him, and raise them yourself free range. That would be a much more interesting test, since you both started with the same genetics.

[nutterly_uts]

I could do. I was just worried that taking them outside after they've only ever been inside in huge numbers would make them more likely to die?
I'm also not sure if they are vaccinated etc which I want to avoid if I can?

[Marches Farmer]

I breed Narragansett turkeys, mostly raised by broody turkeys but sometimes in an incubator.  The eggs hatched in late July are growing away well and, since we have a surplus of stags this year, some will be sold (live) for meat.  They are very different to commercial turkeys.  There were some of those at Hereford Poultry Market this morning and we noticed that their beaks were trimmed, their gait was poor due to the width of their breasts and, although they were a similar age to ours, they couldn't fly and were being shooed along the walkway into a pen.  Ours would have been up in the rafters within 30 seconds!  Our turkeys have always been far less trouble than chickens. We start them on turkey crumbs, then switch to turkey growers then to standard layers pellets, taking the feeders in at night so they don't get too fat.  Far less pecking order activity, drink a lot when they're growing but get to maturity on less food than a (non-commercial) chicken, despite the stags weighing 15kg and the hens 11-12kg.

[Buffy the eggs layer]

The things that significantly  effect taste / flavour in meat are growth rate, feed to an extent, fat percentage and cortisone in the muscle as a result of stress.


So....,


  a breed which matures more slowly will have a darker and stronger tasting meat. This is sometimes referred to as gamey as wild game matures more slowly. Game also has a more active lifestyle so animals that lead a more active outdoor life will have a more gamey quality to their meat. Although you can keep birds and animals which have been bred for fast growth / commercial systems outside they dont always do very well in that environment.


A rare / heritage breed such as Marches keeps will take longer to mature than your neighbours so you are quite right to plan early and there is a saying that a Turkey raised for Christmas needs to feel the April due on its back so an early hatch is important for your challenge.


Although fat has become a four letter word these days it has an important role to play in the succulence of the meat and plays a vital function in the roasting process. So what you feed them and particularly what you finish them on is important. 


If you havent kept turkeys before then you need to conciser how you will dispatch them in a calm and stress free, humane manor as well as how to pluck and dress them. Bear in mind that if you keep a dark coloured turkey the tiny pin feathers will show up after plucking that would be far less noticeable on a white bird.


I think this is a really great idea and there is no doubt that the birds that you raise will have a superior flavour but he may raise his turkeys this way to meat a specific market that values quantity and price over quality so it may be his customers that you need to convince.


If you want to do a like for like as womble suggests with a double breasted bird they are extremely vulnerable outdoors for the reasons that Marches describes but if you want to try a heritage breed then get some early hatching eggs from a responsible breeder. I wish I had got mine from Marches.

[wayfarer]

I am more or less doing what Womble suggest at the moment.  I had a poor hatch and only had one poult hatch so got a couple of other day olds from a friend who runs a turkey business.  I admit that I didn't really know what breed they were but it is very obvious now that they are double breasted as they are huge and waddle around.  My original poult was a traditional breed and is much skinnier than the others.  They are all stags so are easy to compare.  The commercial double breasted ones now weigh about 11.5kg whereas the other one is only 6kg - we had a weigh in at the weekend to see when we would need to dispatch to avoid a turkey too big to fit in the oven!  However, the commercial ones are perfectly happy free ranging and all three have been living in exactly the same conditions.  They are currently in an open fronted barn protected by Heras fencing and are roosting on a half round fencepost about 80cm high.  So I think you could take a couple of poults from your friend and then compare the actual result of barn raised compared to outdoor free range.

[Womble]

I should give one word of warning - we did a blind taste test of one of our Hubbard chooks vs an Aldi value one.


Everybody preferred the one from Aldi! 

[nutterly_uts]

Glad you all don't think I'm mad 

I don't think I am going to convince him to change how he does things (profit for one will be very different) nor his customers who will be wanting a specific product at a specific cost but I personally want to see just how much of a difference there can be by not being so intensive.

I want to do similar with sheep and eventually cattle but this seemed like a much more manageable small scale way to prove this

[Buffy the eggs layer]

Womble - re the taste test -the fat content could have a bearing on this as well as how the Aldi birds are processed / preserved so its not quite a like for like. Another issue with the taste test idea is that the person tasting may be looking for a familiar flavour such as fat, salt or sugar so after many years of eating mass produced or processed foods they may not have a pallet for the real deal.


I watched a tv experiment recently where students were fed "real" italian style pizza and the american style with the soya ham substitute, sugar in the tomato sauce, salt in the processed cheese masquerading as mozzarella etc.


They were asked if they could tell the real deal from the processed and even the girl who claimed to be Italian choose the processed one with the fake soya ham. It just tasted how she expected pizza to taste. We have all had so many years of white meat without any meat flavour but with gradually increased amounts of fat content that getting people to appreciate something else which is smaller and more expensive is a real challenge.


But go for it nutts, if only to satisfy yourself that there is an alternative to your neighbors approach.

[Marches Farmer]

I think heritage versus commercial turkeys is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.  You have to view them almost as different species, even more so than comparing cheap-as-chips indoor-reared commercial chickens that go to slaughter at 7 weeks with free-range ones at 14 weeks. I did a report this year for a German turkey farmer investigating whether rare breeds could cope with being free range, organic rearing in the Black Forest.  (Answer - yes, they can). 

[nutterly_uts]

I think heritage versus commercial turkeys is a bit like comparing apples and oranges.  You have to view them almost as different species, even more so than comparing cheap-as-chips indoor-reared commercial chickens that go to slaughter at 7 weeks with free-range ones at 14 weeks. I did a report this year for a German turkey farmer investigating whether rare breeds could cope with being free range, organic rearing in the Black Forest.  (Answer - yes, they can).

Very true. I'd still like to raise some of a heritage breed but maybe its worth taking a few of the commerical too.

Whats the best set up to create for them? How much of a house to outside space area do I need to take into account for each bird? Got a clean slate to start with and I like to plan

[Marches Farmer]

Ours generally spaend the winter in well ventilated old pig sheds or a big old stable, with solid gates to around a metre high and ones made of split pallets (so a bit like lightweight Yorkshire boarding) at the top, which gives good ventilation.  In summer they go into adapted garden sheds on skids, with a run of game panels and game netting - we have to move the setup maybe four times between late Spring and mid Autumn but it keeps fresh, short grass in front of them as they follow the sheep.  Ours probably average a square metre each in the house and at least three times that in the run.  We find the best feeders after about 16 weeks to be big old saucepans or deep casserole dishes held steady with chunks of rock - they like to shovel in the pellets and can easy knock over a Mexican hat type feeder.  Standard galvanised drinker works OK and they always have grit available.