fattening heritage turkeys?

[silkiechicken]

I'm sure a 12/14 month old will be tougher and more flavorful. Might require aging and brining more so than a 5 month old one.

 

[chickenannie]

So wouldn't coranchers recommendation to butcher at 9 months vs 6 months mean a tough bird? (see above).

 

[pdpatch]

It deffiently would if you use a fast method of cooking like frying. With the exception of people who use turkey fryers, the majority of turkeys are baked, broiled or smoked, which are a slow cooking method, along with basting the meat. With slow cooking it's not that much of a problem.

When raising turkey's the time for butchering take into account, the fact the most turkey's are slow cooked, not fried. For Heritage Turkeys it's around 30 weeks or 7 months. This is more of when a window of opportunity begins rather then a fixed absolute time. Because it also depends on how the Turkey was raised and the breed of the turkey. A number of people feel that Turkeys raised on grass/weeds taste better, but doing that depends on how well they forage.

Longer cooking time help tenderize the meat, Also it would be helpful to use let the meat soak in a brine solution before cooking. The extra by fat gained from older birds around the meat will help improve the taste. You can also use a seringe and needle to inject the brine into the meat to help tenderize it.

If you are entending to fry the turkey then I would probebly get a BB Bronze or Great white and butcher early. That would provide a larger bird, at 17 week a dressed bronze or white could be around 19 to 20 pounds easily.

With in the last month someone posted a link to a Turkey taste test in forum. The Butter Ball type turkey (Great White) was rated last amoung all of those in the taste test. Bourbon Red was number two by a very close margin.


Although we raised BB Bronze and Great White this year, and they were in the 26 plus lbs range after 22 weeks. I am having second thoughts about doing it again, as in 35 years of buying turkeys we have never gotten one larger then 20 lbs and we had turkey for days after that. So I don't think we really need that big of a turkey around here. Plus in our upright freezer we can fit one 26 pounder where two 18 pounders fit.

 

[2manyhats]

Quote:
Thanks for the good info. What type of bird was best for taste? Justs curious as I have a few different heritage breeds here.

 

[warcard]

So is my year old Slate Tom too old to eat?

 

[chickenannie]

I read the results of the taste-test too -- they did a blind taste test with 70 or 80 people. White Midgets were #1 and Bourbon Reds were #2, but the votes for these top 2 together were twice as many as for all the other birds combined. I think they tested on appearance, taste, texture, and a whole list of things...

Warcard, I want to hear the answer -- i have some 14 month-olds that could be butchered, but I assumed they'd be too tough.

 

[antlers]

Nothing it too old to butcher if it is cooked right.
That said, I have 8 heritage turkeys that were hatched April 25th. The royal palm hens are going this weekend I think. The burbon toms mid October except maybe 2 for fresh thanksgiving. I can not get mine to eat grower or game bird food at all. They are inside a 5 acre High fence where I raise deer. They follow the deer around and eat bugs they stir up, grass, LOTS of corn out of the deer feeders AND!!! a lot of 38% protein pellets that are there for the deer. This is a high protein and calcium supplement that dairy cows eat for milking and I feed the deer for antler growth. The birds woud rather eat that than their own feed. I have not gone through 50 pounds of grower since early June.
The higher the protein feed you give them the faster they will grow but they will eat what they want if they have access to it. I am guessing my tom burbons right now weigh about 20 pounds. Maybe 22. Kind of hard to weigh them though!!! Mine look good but man they are butt ugly to me! I hope they taste a lot better !

 

[Cason]

Quote:
Heck no! Maybe brine him a day or so, and slow roasting. It'll be GREAT!

 

[pdpatch]

No a year old turkey is not to old to eat. Many hunters shoot turkey that old or older.

An old hunting trick, is to let the bird rest in ice water for 48 hours then freeze the bird. I suspect it does what commercially processers do, inject water into the meat to tenderize it.
ten freeze the bird so the ice crystals help bread the meat down.

Pine Apple juice is also a natural tenderizer,, I have tries it but it may also help.

We did a year old rooster this year and it was very tender. We slow cooked the roo in a roster for about 4 hours. Which part worked to tenderize the meat best, ice water resting or really long cooking time, I am not sure. But you can add extra cooking time , but remeber to baste the meat, Or inject the bird with a water/butter sulution so it kind of self baste.

Tom

 

[2manyhats]

Thanks Tom. I'll give your suggestions a try when we do our heritage birds.