Time to process?

[TimTurkey]

What is the best age for processing my broad breasted turkeys? By best I mean for texture, flavor, size, fat content, etc.

Thanks,

 

[Lagerdogger]

People have different opinions. Many like the birds to be at least a year old. Many others butcher birds that are in their first fall. Minimum age to do heritage turkeys is generally reported as about 28 weeks. Broad-breasted birds are often butchered at 12-16 weeks. If you let the broad-breasteds go for a year, you may have some mighty big turkeys!!!

 

[Czech's_chicks]

For BB Bronze or white, 6 months was the premium age. Mine got so big my small oven couldn't accommodate them, so I am raising heritage from now on.

 

[Frosty]

I do mine at 5 1/2 to 6 months. I don't keep food in front of them 24/7 so they forage quite a bit. That helps keep them from getting obscenely huge and folks love them.

 

[ColbyNTX]

Quote:

 

[Frosty]

Quote:
We did a few that were a year and a half... the tom dressed at 38 pounds and the hen was a bit smaller. At close to 6 months my toms average 22 pounds and the hens around 12. I let them forage. A lot of times I just feed once a week to remind them that they live here, but I also keep a close eye on condition. They decimate the grasshopper population and eat any apples that fall from the trees, so we don't have a bunch of yellow jackets hanging around the area either. For the last few weeks, I lock them up and start feeding them again. I also throw in extra apples.

I think I'll brine and smoke a bird again this year

But I'll probably do that for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, trying to keep the smoker temp up in late December in North Dakota is difficult to say the least. Last year we actually had 36 degrees so it shouldn't have been bad, but we also had sustained winds at 29 mph gusting to 38. After fighting trying to keep the smoker temp up for about 2 hours, I finally brought it in and finished it in the oven.