Frugal Homesteading

Hello Welcome to my Turkey Page. On the left hand side of here you will see different areas of interest on our homestead.

This last year was the first time we ordered turkeys for us to raise. We bought the white breasted and the bronze turkeys. I think the white breasted turned out nicer the meat that everyone loved. People are just not used to the darker skin of the bronze and think something is wrong with it.

The white breasted were also more calmer which is probably why they are rasied for Thanksgiving in bigger places. We called the turkeys the "Zen Turkeys" just being with them was so calming. They had a sooth affect on anyone that came to see them.

They were easily trained to come up front when they saw me knowing they will get food this was easier then the broilers who are scared and run to the back of the coop. It's easier to move the coop when they come up front this way you wont smash any feet while moving it. The broilers tend to go to the back which makes it a two man or should I say one woman, one kid job. One person to chase them in back (kid) and one to pull it up front (mom)

They did not like corn or milo when we gave it to them just the regular feed and grass. They did not each as much grass as our broilers do. I was fixing one of the waters one day bending down and I guess one of them thought I was a high perch cause he ended up jumping on me and his claws scratched me leaving a gash on my back. OUCH! However don't let this scare you on raising them. They were not mean and didnt come after me even the "Toms (male)" I just wouldnt recommend getting down to their level. They would also sometimes peck at my shorts or pants testing to see if it was food but that did not hurt.

I had a chick one time peck at my eyelash cause I had it too close to my face kissing it. Proubly thought it was a nice bug (my eyelashes) hehe. I don't do that anymore I would be asking for trouble. We did find out that they are too big for the standard plucker. Even after cutting off the feet to fit in the plucker it did a poor job and we had to end up plucking by hand which costed us time. (For you new people that have never processed a turkey, yes the bird was dead before we cut off the feet) By the way those pliers that you use on fish work great for taking out feathers.

We plan only to do this for Thanksgiving. I don't think I could handle this all the time. It was nice to have our own turkeys this year. We ended up baking one in the oven, broiling one in hot oil, and heating one in our La Cacha similar to putting it under ground. We had over 40 people over for Thanksgiving hehe thats why we had so many turkeys that day.

Frugal Turkey Ways:

Since this is our first time I really don't have much suggestions but I will update in time.

*Find the bags to fit in them early cause they are so large they do not fit in a regular broiler bag we had to pre order them.

*Make sure you have your customers pre order how many they want & pay for at least half of it, that way for Thanksgiving you wont end up with that many extra and if they don't come through you have half the money still. NON refundable this way they are more likely to pay you the rest. This has been suggested to us and I think we will listen!

*Have friends especially with a large family come over to help you pluck and offer them a free turkey, great experience for kids, its fun with there are many doing this plus the friend would love the turkey.

Links:

Cool link about demand for Turkeys: http://www.thedailystar.com/news/community/stories/2000/11/22/comtycol.html

Pasture Poultry Association

http://www.apppa.org/

You can find pastured turkeys in these links:

http://www.eatwild.com/

http://www.localharvest.org/