We’re very excited to announce that we will be raising two dozen Narragansett Turkeys next year. Named for Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, it is a heritage breed that has an excellent disposition and meat quality. The breed likely descends from the native Eastern Wild Turkey, and domestic turkeys (probably Norfolk Blacks) that were brought to the U.S. by English and European colonists in the 1600’s.
It is a threatened breed. Although it used to be used heavily in production, in the early 1900’s, it fell in popularity due to the rise of the Standard Bronze breed. Narragansett Turkeys, unlike the industrial production turkeys you get in the grocery store, are still capable of mating the way nature intended, and are noted for being good mothers. We may just keep a breeding pair here!
We will offer the birds for sale; they will be ready the week of Thanksgiving 2011 for pick-up here at the farm. They will be raised on pasture. I can’t wait for the baby poults to arrive in late April!
Such handsome birds!
You can read more about the breed on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy website.
It is difficult to feel truly nourished by food when you know that it has come from animals that were mistreated, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to insure the responsible raising of these birds, so that we can be confident that they will have lived a life in which they were shown compassion and had the chance to eat food out on pasture, and not in a large, overcrowded building. We are trying to be responsible caretakers of the land, and that includes practicing good animal husbandry.
We’ll be taking deposits on birds for Thanksgiving after the first of the year. If we end up with more than two dozen requests, we’ll have to see about increasing our order, but that’s what we’ve decided to start out with for now. Please feel free to contact us with any questions!
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