Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
My guess is this has a great deal to do with the boredom and overcrowding of com-
mercial birds.
Midget Whites are always the friendliest poults. In a large group of mixed breeds,
you can almost always pick out the Midget Whites, as they will come over to you to
check you out.
In the mid-twentieth century, when it was easy to find many sources for heritage tur-
keys (just called turkeys back then), breeders took great pride in advertising their strain
as being better in some form or another: they were “fat growing,” “broad breasted,”
“clean picking” and so on. All of these breeds were selected for the particular niche
or quality they displayed, and these characteristics were used to promote one breeder's
strain over another. As a result, we had separate strains of many turkeys, especially the
Bronze.
One cannot be quite as selective in today's world, but there is a resurgence of breed-
ers working with individual strains and one can do some checking around and find some
improved lines of certain breeds.
Breed Descriptions
In the naturally mating type turkeys, you can choose from many common breeds:
Auburn, Silver Auburn, Jersey Buffs, Standard Bronze, Sweetgrass, Lilac, Narragansett,
White Holland, Royal Palm, Blue Palm, Chocolate, Midget White, and Beltsville White.
The Regal Red, Harvest Gold, and Oregon Grey are less common breeds.
Auburn
turkeys are a delightful shade of brown with barred wing feathers and a red-
dish tint to the feathers. The red is almost like a fine mist, really visible only up close.
They are hardy and good foragers.
PALE TURKEY PICKING IS EASIEST
White or pale-feathered birds are less time-consuming to butcher because, unlike the
more obvious dark feathers on darker birds, a few intact pale feathers can be over-
looked when you're picking them. Consumers probably eat far more white feathers
than they do black or dark feathers! After butchering dark-colored turkeys, pickers
are often confronted with feathers that are not quite mature or ready to be removed.
These dark feathers leave colored streaks on the carcass if plucked at a time when the
feathers are actively growing. Although this is harmless, and many people no longer
