Turkey poults have just arrived at Heart Arrow Ranch, and we’re so excited to be raising holiday turkeys again. We took a break from raising them partly because of having too much to do already, and processing them is hard work! We had looked into outsourcing the processing for this year, but we decided to not raise as many as we would need for the processor to take our turkeys. (With our chickens, we have to bring in a minimum 250 birds, for example.)
We wanted to raise a colored breed, but since we waited too long to order poults, we’re raising white, broad-breasted turkeys. Turkeys are pretty fun and different from chickens and ducks. When they are older, you can call to them and they’ll call back. It’s hilarious.
As with all our pastured poultry, once these turkeys are big enough, they’ll move out of the brooder and into the field with access to foraging, organic feed, and water. From our experience, these super hot days are not so bad right now, for when they’re very small, the turkey poults like it warm and have a much lower mortality rate.
Turkeys will cost $6.00/lb, and you can order a turkey by putting down a $40 deposit as soon as today. The deposit helps us cover the feed bill, which gets quite big toward the end. Hens will be 9-12 lb, and Toms will be +15 lb. You can specify what weight you’d like, and we’ll strive to harvest a bird as close to that weight as possible. We will be processing the turkeys and the pick-up dates and locations are TBD.
Mendocino Meats 