Thoughts on Turkeys ...

Christmas is expensive.

For the vast majority of omnivores, Christmas lunch means turkey and the full works. Sitting around the table, wearing a ridiculous paper hat and carving the biggest joint of the year is all part of the ritual. Until recently very few people questioned where their meat came from and the vast majority shopped by price alone. In the current economic climate cost is still a huge discriminator, but, thanks to very public campaigns including TV programmes by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Jamie Oliver, it is hard to have failed to be made aware of the conditions animals, and particularly poultry, are reared in.

Turkeys are solitary woodland birds and their natural environment is a very long way from the cramped barns used for intensive rearing. That said, let's not forget it is the public's demand for cheap meat that has led to such farming methods!

Okay, we are where we are, so what do we do now?

For those of us who can afford it and want our turkey to be raised as naturally as possible, the decision we make about where we source our Christmas bird is very important.

We had our first Christmas in Cornwall three years ago and as soon as we discovered our local butcher sold organic turkeys we ordered one from him. It really was a lovely bird, but the £88 price tag spoilt it a bit. Year two, and we discovered there was an organic farm just over the hill that reared their own turkeys and geese for Christmas so we ordered one from them - again a lovely bird (some of the youngsters at Newhouse Farm help them with the plucking every year so there was real ownership) but only marginally cheaper. Last year we decided that rearing our own might be the way forward. We did the sums and reckoned that without costing in the labour we could rear them for about a third of the price. So we fattened up a dozen Norfolk Blacks and gave them loads of room, organic feed and plenty of TLC. It was a resounding success. Watching them grow and develop was fascinating and they made great presents for friends and family.

Somehow, our birds never really grasped the fact that there was fencing there to protect them and to try and contain them. Every evening we found turkeys roosting on the aqueduct, or on the roof of their shed, so putting them away for the night was an interesting experience to say the least. Fortunately, someone had a brainwave and decided that if we erected a perch in the middle of their ‘compound' they would roost there, which would make it a lot easier to put them away in the evenings. The perch worked, but from a distance it looked a bit like a giant cross, covered in vultures, so raised a few eyebrows in the churchyard that backs onto the paddock where they were housed.

Our plan to house the birds was really quite simple. We obtained a ‘Freecycle' shed that was slightly rotten at the base, chopped the bottom 18" off with a circular saw (very coarsely and it took about 10 minutes) and used a poultry electric fence to cordon off an area about 20m x 20m. This is, in theory, enough space for about 40 free-range birds but we limited our numbers to twelve, and, as the birds grew, we kept moving their compound to give them more fresh vegetation.

Not wishing to gloss over the less appealing part of rearing your own meat - it is worth stating that we did all of the killing, hanging and plucking ourselves. I can see that it could be a problem for some first-time turkey keepers, however, when I was growing up my mother used to fund Christmas by fattening turkeys in one of our barns at home in Northern Ireland. So, I called in the reinforcements and got her to come over to advise and show us the way.

Everyone who wanted to be involved in the killing and plucking found an apron and most had a glass of sherry before we started. It was a positively festive occasion and our birds looked magnificent hanging from the rafters of the outbuilding near the waterwheel. Without being too brutal, I must say that our killing was quick and our plucking efficient, and importantly, on Christmas day our birds were truly magnificent.

This year we have decided that the best way forward is to rear our own yet again and as you can see from the photographs the birds are truly free range. Sadly, our free roaming, free-range, birds have taken a fancy to all our brassicas and have stripped the leaves nearly bare - I know I should be cross but I tend to think of it a bit like feeding pigs apples; it's a bit like pre-stuffing!?

Dick Strawbridge