turkey help

[farmmomofmany]

I want to raise a few turkeys for our own food source. I am not sure what kind is best to butcher and how long is best to let them live?
Any suggestions is Great and appreciated

amy

 

[faykokoWV]

I went through this decision process my self right after Thanksgiving. There were a lot of different factors that played into my choice

Do you want just meat, or are you interested in a heritage breed
Along with that question, are you concerned about the best feed conversion?

Do you want mostly white meat, or are you ok with a smaller breast

Do you care about the feather color?

How big is too big? Some of these Turkeys can get huge if you are planning for a Thanksgiving turkey vs having a flexible butchering schedule.

Do you want to keep some for breeding for yourself?

I'm sure the experts will chime in and give you more guidance, I just thought I would share the questions I found out were important to ask as part of my decision.

I ended up ordering midget white turkey eggs, which should be coming in a few months! I'm very excited.

 

[farmerlor]

Quote:
Just some random thoughts here:
Raising turkeys to eat will cost you about 4 or 5 times what the turkeys in the store cost at Thanksgiving so unless you're worried about the quality of the store turkeys you need to know you're not going to be saving any money here.
The Bourbon Red and Midget White turkeys come in on top in blind taste tests. These are medium and small sized heritage turkeys with a little less breast meat than your standard Butterball and Butterball comes in dead last in the taste tests.
Generally, a broad breasted variety of turkey can be butchered at 6-9 months while the heritage varieties will take another 2 to 3 months. Heritage turks are really best at about a year of age.
Another thought on costs involved: The poults or hatching eggs can be a little pricey so you may want to think about getting a variety of turkey that can breed but then you have to winter the birds and feed your breeding stock. Of course breeding stock can be used to breed poults or hatching eggs that can be sold to help defray some of your expenses.