A Healthy Turkey Is a Tasty Turkey Christmas is a big event and one that deserves the best, fresh Christmas turkey. Too often, though, we make do with low quality birds; stringy flesh that has no taste. Free range turkeys, on the other hand, taste just as a fresh Christmas turkey should.
Free range turkeys only come from the best quality chicks. There’s no battery farming here. No cramming as many birds into a dark and dingy barn as possible here. Your fresh Christmas turkeys will have been raised in an environment that is both spacious and disease free. As soon as they are old enough, the turkeys are given access to an outside area in which they can roam freely. This means the farmers are able to raise fewer birds per year, which does in turn effect the price: but for that slightly higher price tag you are getting a far superior bird and one which know lived a happy life.
Only the fittest chicks are chosen; some battery farmers are happy to use any old mangy chick, but they only grow up to become mangy turkeys. And no one wants to eat a mangy turkey.
Free range turleys are grown from slow growing strains. Though fast growing turkeys are a cheaper and quicker product to produce, you pay for that in the loss of taste. You get what you pay for. Slow growing strains allow the turkeys to develop at a natural rate and retain their flavour. Typically, chicks intended for the Christmas market will come into the farm around the middle of June. This allows for a 22 week growing period, as opposed to the 16 week growing period typical of fast growing strains reared in an industrial environment.
Your cheap, supermarket turkey is also likely to have been fed on an array of growth additives and growth promoting chemicals. While there are various claims around the health implications of eating chemically promoted livestock, the key point to remember is that it really affects the flavour. Additives have their place in farming and animal rearing, but it needs to be done in moderation; to encourage development, not force it. Do you really want to eat a turkey that in life was pumped full of steroids? The rations given to the best, fresh Christmas turkeys contain a minimum of 70% cereal containing no such growth promoters and additives.
Of course,these birds are still being raised for slaughter. When the time comes, the farmers hand pluck the turkeys on the farms on which they were raised, causing minimal stress to the bird.
And just in case there were any lingering worries; the best, fresh Christmas turkeys come from farms which are inspected annually by Environmental Health and the Traditional Farmfresh Turkey Association (TFTA). Their accreditation means you can be sure the fresh Christmas turkey you are buying was raised in the very best conditions.
Nobody has greater care and love for animals than free range farmers and they want the birds they rear to have the very best quality of life. It’s best for the bird and it’s best for the consumer as well. A healthy turkey is a tasty turkey.
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Fresh Christmas turkeys is run by third generation turkey farmers. For fresh Christmas turkeys raised to the highest welfare standards, get in touch with them now.
Fresh Christmas turkeys