|
Heritage turkeys are smart. Every time I say this people look at me like I'm crazy. It's true though. They are also beautiful, hardy and self sufficient.
When we purchased our first turkey poults in 2009, my friends told me all sorts of things about turkeys. A few were true :-) We have found our Bourbon Red Heritage turkeys to be smart, easy to raise, easy to handle, GREAT foragers and prolific layers.
Heritage turkeys are not hybrids, meant to grow to butchering size in 2-3 months. Heritage birds like the Bourbon Red require about 6 months to mature to a nice, large size to butcher. What do you get for that extra time? You get FLAVOR, lean, but juicy, natural, non-genetically altered meat. They also breed naturally, unlike their distant broad breasted cousins. We are selling hatching eggs, poults and a few select butcher birds from our Reds.
A bit of history on The Bourbon Red. Development started in Pennsylvania with the selection of Jersey Buffs for deeper color. The result was called Tuscarora Red, sometimes Tuscawara Red. Settlers heading west took them to Kentucky along with the long rifle. Final development was centered in Kentucky and southern Ohio where they were also called Kentucky Reds and Bourbon Butternuts. Except for the required white flight feathers, the Bourbon Red pattern is just a darker, richer version of the buff pattern.
The Bourbon Red was accepted into the APA Standard in 1909, and Mr. Barbee of Bourbon County, Kentucky, had been given credit for its origin. Their weights average 33 pounds for toms and 18 for hens.
An article from Mother Earth News on Midget White and Bourbon Red Turkeys
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Sustainable-Farming/Midget-White-Turkey.aspx.
|
