Heritage Turkey processing weights

[deineria]

Can anyone give me feedback on the average processed weight of heritage turkeys at 6 months old?

Please let me know some management practices - i.e. medicated feed, hatchery stock verses breeder quality stock -

 

[Celie]

At 6 months a heritage turkey has not even finished growing it's frame, or started to put on much weight, so it would make a very skinny processed bird! They do not usually reach max processing weight until they are near 18 months. At 18 months, you can estimate the process weight to be 20% less than live weight. At 6 months, they probably won't reach 40% of their live weight, after processing. Hatcheries put live weight averages in their catalogs, for each breed and I know I listed most of the APA recognized breeds on some of the turkey threads in which this question was asked. Keep in mind that individuals can differ from each other as well as different breeds can differ. The largest Heritage breeds are Standard Bronze and Holland White, the Smallest are Midget Whites and Beltsville Small Whites, all the others fall in between, with an average weight of approx. 33 # for toms and 25# for hens at 18 months and that is live weight.

 

[retlaw]

Last year at 6 months when i harvested my blue slates the biggest one was 21lbs dressed.
I do not need them bigger them that.

Small hens were around 10 lbs.
Perfect roasting size for me.

If I had to wait 18 months to harvest I would be broke.

 

[beanmcnulty]

I take mine at almost 7 months and they are 8-9 hen and 14-15 tom. I did some calculations and vs the BBW they eat about twice as much since they take about twice as long, so I am thinking on trying some BBWs for those customers that dont want to pay for all that feed! Some customers don't mind but it's a niche market for sure.

 

[msmeower]

Are those weights (8-9 for hen, 14-15 per tom) live weights or processed weights?

 

[beanmcnulty]

Those are processed, I do not know what the lives may be, but probably close to 11 and 20.

 

[beanmcnulty]

And just an aside, I did do some BBW this year and at 4 months old were 20# processed so they weighed about 27 live, quite a difference!