American Bronze Turkeys
Heirloom turkeys are endangered. The American Bronze is considered to be the first heirloom turkey in America. There are estimated to be less than 1000 birds each of the American Bronze and the Bourbon Red remaining in our country. It was for these reasons - and for the fact that we just liked the looks of the American Bronzes - that we chose this type of turkeys. Ours are not the Broad-Breasted Bronzes noted in the American history of turkeys below. We are hoping to help bring these birds back from the verge of extinction by raising them and marketing them to other small farmers and homesteaders to raise in their own flocks. The difference in taste between the heirloom turkeys and commercially-raised turkeys is definitely worth the extra effort of raising these magnificent birds for your own table. We tried raising the Large Whites for a while. Even if the pinfeathers are black, we still prefer the Bronzes. Here is a photo of our Tom and one of our hens.
Our turkeys have been mistaken for "wild turkeys" by some of our neighbors & visitors, even by a local sheriff's deputy (who asked us how we had tamed them). I really think the Spanish blacks look more like wild turkeys than American Bronzes do. Our turkeys free-range throughout our pasture, barnyard, our front yard, even ranging across the road at time, as you can tell by our livestock photos. They also appear to enjoy being photographed, since they will manage to make it into almost every livestock photo we take. Since they do fly, it's harder to keep them contained than turkeys who can't fly. As long as we can keep the local hunters convinced that they aren't wild turkeys, though, they should be okay.
We hope to hatch out plenty of young turkey chicks and take chicks, pullets, & young Toms for sale at Jacob's Cave this year, hopefully at the spring swap meet and again at the fall event.
History of American Turkeys: In this country, American Bronze turkeys are considered to be an "heirloom" turkey, the first heirloom turkey in the United States. Tom King, in his "Short History of the Turkey", says, "The turkey on the table that first Thanksgiving wasn't a wild American turkey--it was an English bird. Turkeys are a New World discovery, now known to have been domesticated in Mexico around 200 BC. Returning conquistadors brought turkeys to Spain in 1510, and the birds were delivered to livestock farmers in England a decade later. In 1620, Pilgrims brought turkeys back to the New World. The Pilgrims bred their domesticated turkeys with the wild turkeys of American forests. Turkeys were then bred for commerce, and farmers worked to develop breeds that were hardier, or meatier, or tasted better--desirable traits fetching premium prices. From their selections came breeds now referred to as "heirloom," "heritage" or "legacy", beginning first with the American Bronze, then the Narragansett, the Jersey Buff and the Bourbon Red.
In the 1870s, in Bourbon County, Kentucky, breeders crossing the Jersey Buff produced an elegant, chesty bird with rich-tasting meat, which they named the Bourbon Red. Until 1910, the Bourbon Red was top bird in the marketplace. The American Bronze was America's largest turkey and, some say, the handsomest. Commercial breeders immediately went to work on this toothsome bird. They feverishly crossed and selected, achieving greater and greater yields. In the late 1920s, a cross made between the Bronze and an English strain resulted in the Broad-breasted Bronze, a bird that grew to nearly 40 pounds and stood four feet tall in full strut.
In the 1950s, poultry processors deemed black pinfeathers "unsightly", and the hunt was on for a Broad-breasted Bronze with less visible pinfeathers. They then developed the Large (or Broad-breasted) White, by now an inbred and somewhat imbecilic creature. In the post-war 50s and into the 60s, the mass-production of food was seen as a badge of modernity. The Large White fit the program: it grew quickly and produced record weights of breast meat; it was sanitized, removed from the shamble of the barnyard, it was an example of human dominion and American ingenuity. Then came the introduction of factory farming: a system, deemed ingenious in its day, of reckless compromises and dire consequences.
The industrial Large White of today is often referred to as a "Frankenbird." Whereas the massive breast and long legs of the Broad-breasted Bronze somehow conveyed a Sun King's majesty, the top-heavy, stub-legged Large White inspires pity. It can't run--it can barely walk; it can't fly; and it can't mate properly. All industrial Large Whites are artificially inseminated. The joke about turkeys drowning in the rain? No-one knows for sure, but farmers of heirloom turkeys are quick to defend their birds' intelligence and point out their turkeys' inquisitive natures. In their lifetimes, most industrial turkeys will never feel rain.
Today over 95% of the 267 million turkeys consumed by Americans each year are Large Whites. Between 1975 and 2000, per capita consumption of Large White turkey in the United States rose from eight pounds to over eighteen. Today's consumers have a positive perception of turkey meat as a low-fat source of protein. Industrial production of the Large White is now an eight-billion-dollar-a-year business. One wayward virus could bring it all down.
Some small poultry farmers heap scorn upon the genetically-engineered broad-breasted white turkeys, the "Frankenbirds", instead working to keep heirloom turkeys alive." Heirloom turkeys bring much-needed diversity to the turkey gene pool--the more genes, the healthier. Due to their rarity, heirloom birds are usually raised right, and nearly always on small farms. They roam and talk, they peck and browse--they know nothing of the cages and toxins of industry. They roost in barns at night, protected against foxes and great horned owls; toms stage great battles for their hens in the mating seasons; they fly.
Most industrial Large Whites are harvested at around four months of age. A turkey's natural fat layer--warmth for the oncoming winter--begins to form around five months of age. Heirloom turkeys reach harvest size at about seven months of age. Heirloom birds, being active birds, are leaner and more muscular, and the cook has to keep both the fat and the lean in mind when preparing a long-legged heirloom turkey."
(counter placed 2/21/05)