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Midgets should be grown for 6 to 10 months depending on size desired. What lends to their sought after flavor is the longer growing time as opposed to a Broad Breasted. I think If you wanted one "chicken" sized then you could go earlier, but the longer growing period does add to the flavor of all heritage breeds. We have some people that like them small and others a bit bigger. Ours came from three different strains each with its own size ratio. We kept hens from all and two toms. Frankie is a bit bigger and has the most beautiful blue eyes. Mr Schnod is tiny and so very very sweet. I also recently purchased two young toms to help maintain the fertility. If something were to happen to one of my boys I want replacements readily available. The only problem is they want to hang with the ducks and the geese. They aren't gender confused. They are species confused. Hopefully they will figure it out if the time comes.
I've eaten 3 year old turkeys from other heritage breeds and they were just as good as 6 month old. I don't know if it was the cook or the turkey. Generally you switch out your breeding stock every three years. Most people eat them then. I've never heard anyone complain that they HAD to eat a turkey even if it was an older bird.
Hope that helps.
Thanks for the compliments. I will let the girls know they make pretty eggs. Harvey's are the ones that have the darkest spots. She was the last one to start laying, but they were well worth the wait. We love our Harvey girl.
Midgets can began laying around 6 to 9 months. I did bring my turkeys into laying early for my area ( middle of a blizzard and no school today ) as I wanted to have them a little better developed and hopefully just a teeny bit of fat on them for Thanksgiving. Mine are free ranged and normally you would pen them for a few weeks giving them a higher content of fatty feed. This shortens the muscle causing it to soften and of course the fat is desirable for roasting. We suggested brineing to our customers, and they LOVED the results. We didn't pen them and they eat what they eat. Which is whatever they like whether that's all the berries (late season raspberries and blackberries all went missing), completely striping the broccoli and eating every turned tomato, or grasses and alfalfa from our fields, or any bug that takes their fancy. I only give commercial in the evening. They love to run, fly, chase, and hunt. We have plenty of room so we can let them. I love going outside to call the turkeys and have them come zipping from where ever they were. Can you tell I love my turkeys? The chickens come when I call them because they know I have food. The turkeys come whenever I call because they LOVE me.
