How much did you pay for your Thanksgiving Bird

[smom1976]

the ones here were first of all 270 miles away then for a 12-13.5 lb turkey was $55 that is still 4.58 a lb. I am guessing that shipping will only add to that price.. they are expensive.

 

[Marlinchaser]

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No he is waiting in the freezer for his day to get here. But he has others in there to keep him company, I wouldnt want him to be lonely, he is also being keep company by a couple of chickens and parts of a pig.

Have you ever keept track to determine what your really paying for a homegrown Turkey I am thinking

150 for feed 10 bags at 15/50lbs divided by 7 birds 21.50 per bird
cost of poults 5 ea
processing 5 ea

31.50 avg 20lbs = $ 1.57 per pound if my math is right, not too bad since I know where the bird has been since hatching

 

[onebuggirl]

We have Thanksgiving in the US your post made me remember that it is totally a US tradition. We do turkey for Thanksgiving, Goose for Christmas, Duck for New Years and Ham for Easter!

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[MissPrissy]

Mine cost would be about the same except I hatched some of the standards myself.

 

[onebuggirl]

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I admit I didn't read every single post. I guess the only good thing about paying $6.50 to a local farmer is that your dollars go directly into your local economy and get recycled, instead of going to Tyson foods CEO on his Yacht in the Caribbean.

I agree with paying more for a local heritage turkey becuase I know the money goes directly to the farmers and if more people baught local the price should go down....more demand...so forth. But I know its tough times for people and I hate the idea of paying a cheaper price for a bird that has such large breast that if it weren't butchered it would crush itself and die.....So this year I let my mom do the buying of the bird....we are doing the pies & ice cream.

 

[the simple life]

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I admit I didn't read every single post. I guess the only good thing about paying $6.50 to a local farmer is that your dollars go directly into your local economy and get recycled, instead of going to Tyson foods CEO on his Yacht in the Caribbean.

That is one of the reasons why I have always food from our local farmer's and I shop the farmer's markets, however being that its also my daughter's birthday on Thanksgiving and it adds a little extra expense that day.
The next day is my son's birthday and a couple of days later is another's son's and another daughter's birthdays.
I have 7 children and Christmas is coming as well.
I have to have priorities and I could not justify spending over one hundred dollars for a turkey no matter whose pocket my money ends up in.
I need that money in my pocket more.
Its too bad that the local farmer's apparently need to charge so much as it definitely puts it out of my reach, so my money will go towards a butterball this year.

 

[mamaKate]

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That's Christmas food!

I have often done a standing rib with yorkshire pudding.

I do roast beef for Christmas, too. I told the kids it was roast beast(as in Dr. Seuss ). They loved it.

 

[MissPrissy]

Those of us that sell turkeys don't charge so much it puts it out of reach for you.

We have to sell those birds at a profit for ourselves.

Being non-commercial and not having unlimited numbers of poults to defray the costs - when one poult dies we have lost that investment.

Have you ever priced high protein turkey feeds? I can't by a 28% protein turkey feed for under $20 per 50 lb bag. 30lb Tom turkeys like to eat. That 30lb tom dresses out to about 24 lbs.

You don't even want to know the cost of that same bag of feed if I could even get it organic.

Farm fresh, hand raised, ground walking, fresh water drinking, sunshine feeling, mudd puddle playing, bug chasing, no antibiotics 28 weeks of real life comes with a price.

Should I sell one of my turkeys for $21 and get paid nothing for all the hard work, chores in the rain, chores in the dark, chores in the sunshine, chores when no one cares about chores or turkeys in mid August?

 

[chickenannie]

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I admit I didn't read every single post. I guess the only good thing about paying $6.50 to a local farmer is that your dollars go directly into your local economy and get recycled, instead of going to Tyson foods CEO on his Yacht in the Caribbean.

That is one of the reasons why I have always food from our local farmer's and I shop the farmer's markets, however being that its also my daughter's birthday on Thanksgiving and it adds a little extra expense that day.
The next day is my son's birthday and a couple of days later is another's son's and another daughter's birthdays.
I have 7 children and Christmas is coming as well.
I have to have priorities and I could not justify spending over one hundred dollars for a turkey no matter whose pocket my money ends up in.
I need that money in my pocket more.
Its too bad that the local farmer's apparently need to charge so much as it definitely puts it out of my reach, so my money will go towards a butterball this year.

I am in no way making a judgement about where anyone buys their turkeys -- it was just one aspect of that decision. It has been a learning for me to me to realize that when I buy from a corporation, the money usually leaves my economy forever. I want to do as much Christmas shopping on my town's mom'n'pop stores this year, instead of at the mall, too. It doesn't mean I never buy the cheaper item from the big box store -- cuz I do that sometimes too.

I'd love it if more people raised their own turkeys. That's one thing I love about BYC.

 

[the simple life]

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Thats is why I said they "apparently need" to charge so much.
The reason why I know they need to charge so much is that the prices are almost the same across the board for all the farms around here.
That is why I said they apparently need to charge so much.
I didn't say-why do they charge so much or why do they think they have to charge so much or why do they feel they have to charge so much.
I didn't say that they shouldn't, I agree that they need to charge so much its the same reason I don't sell my chicken eggs as cheap as the supermarket does either because I need to sell them for more.
But it definitely puts it out of reach for ME to buy a local turkey, which is what I had wanted to do, thats why I wrote that its too bad, that its out of reach for me and my money will have to go towards a butterball this year instead of what I had wanted.
Did that not come across the way I wrote it?