Bronze Turkey

These birds are sourced at day old from Derek Kelly of Farmgate Hatcheries in Essex and Hollyberry Hatcheries in Lincolnshire.  They are rich in flavour well fleshed, and succulent, giving you the good old fashioned taste of turkey as it used to be many years ago.

 This Turkey looks very similar to the wild North American Turkey, black with white tips to its tail and wings, known as bronze because in the sunlight it has a wonderful metallic sheen to its back and wings.  This was, until the 1940’s-50, the only breed available.  It went out of favour when the Broad Breasted White turkey was developed. This new breed, as the name implied, had more meat on the breast although it did not have as much flavour as the old fashioned bronze.  Also when plucked, the white birds did not show the small immature feathers under the skin which gave younger bronze turkeys the look of a man with a heavy  5 0’clock shadow, and as looks do tend to influence peoples buying choices this made bronze turkeys unpopular to the point that they became almost impossible to buy.  However in the last 20 years or so breeders have developed a bronze turkey which has a much improved breast conformity, equal if not better in some cases than several white breeds.  Along with the improvement in breast quality the bronze turkey still retains, in most people’s opinion, the good old fashioned turkey taste. 5-8kgs (11-17lbs) oven ready weight.