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Price doesn’t deter families from buying a heritage turkey for Thanksgiving

 

 

By STAN MADDUX

Indiana Correspondent

 

ROCHESTER, Ind. — The cost is quite a bit higher, but heritage turkeys are popping up on more Thanksgiving dinner tables – and it’s not just from people looking for an authentic Pilgrim type of experience.

Fans of heritage turkeys claim they simply taste much better than the mass-produced store bought turkeys, which have undergone a great deal of genetic engineering to produce a larger breast.

"Far superior" is how Charlotte Wolf described the flavor and texture of the meat in a heritage turkey, whose breast is bit darker than the breast in commercial turkeys made whiter from cross breeding.

Wolf has raised heritage turkeys on her Prairie Winds Nature Farm at Lakeville in northern Indiana, along with other pure breeds like Devon milking cows believed to be the ‘‘first colonial cow,’’ she said.

Rob North has already sold out of the 75 to 100 heritage turkeys he usually raises on his Earth Cure Farm near Rochester, also in the northern part of Indiana.

North said he used to make several trips to Indianapolis and sometimes South Bend and Fort Wayne to sell all of his heritage turkeys, but now he only has to go to Kokomo to promote his flock in order to sell all of his birds.

He also has longtime customers who make it an annual ritual to drive to his farm to pick up their Thanksgiving feast.

"They just taste better than the conventional turkeys by far," North said.

The average cost of a store bought turkey this year is $1.12 to $1.60 per pound, according to Purdue University.

In comparison, a heritage turkey at the North farm is selling for $6.95 per pound mostly because of the cost of organic grain and other feed given to his birds.

Despite the cost of a heritage turkey topping $100, North said the growth in popularity has not waned. In parts, that’s thanks to the growing desire in recent years among customers to eat naturally grown products. "More and more people want something different," North said.

Commercial turkeys are often injected with fluid so they come out of the oven moist, and antibiotics are often given to mass-produced turkeys to fend off disease. Wolf said heritage turkeys still come out moist if cooked slower, and their breasts are not as ‘‘mushy’’ because they’re not injected with anything artificial.

North said heritage turkeys are smaller, but over a seven-month growing period can still weigh up to 18 pounds, plenty for a large Thanksgiving feast.

Because of genetic engineering, commercial turkeys in four months can easily top 20 pounds and during the same seven-month growing period can approach 30 pounds. He’s heard of some commercial breeds weighing 40 to even 60 pounds to where they can’t even walk yet alone fly.

Adding to the appeal of heritage turkeys for some consumers is the experience of re-enacting Thanksgiving dinner of the Pilgrims, who had to go out and hunt their birds out in the wild before genetic engineering was invented.

"If that has some meaning for you, that would be a plus," Wolf said.

Paul Brennan, executive vice president of the Indiana State Poultry Assoc. at West Lafayette, doesn’t argue that heritage turkeys are growing in popularity.

He said the number of small farms raising all varieties of poultry has grown in recent years, especially in more urban areas where laws have been passed to raise chickens.

Some of the operations are run by people who sell poultry and eggs for a profit, while others do it simply out of enjoyment.

"I know there are a lot of smaller flocks out there, and more people are engaged in raising more forms of poultry," said Brennan.

Despite increasing interest in heritage turkeys, there are an estimated 25,000 raised annually compared to more than 200,000,000 industrial turkeys, and most heritage breeds are endangered in some respect, according to Wikipedia.

"The heritage breeds are kind of a throwback to some of the earlier breeds or traits that livestock has that includes turkeys, too," said Gene Matzat, a Purdue extension educator from La Porte,

"Some folks do specialize in raising these heritage breeds," he said.

11/19/2014