Ky Bourbon Red

This year we are offering pasture-raised Bourbon Red turkeys, a heritage-breed, for your family's next thanksgiving dinner. Our turkeys are put onto pasture, where they have acres to roam as they please. We strive for genetic diversity, humane living conditions and treatment, and good health for our turkeys. In doing this we are able to provide a quality product to our customers; one that everyone can be proud to be a part of. The "Bourbon" is for Bourbon County in Kentucky's Bluegrass region where it originated in the late 1800's. Red for the rich, chestnut color of the plumage. The Bourbon Red variety was recognized by the American Poultry Association in 1909. It was ambitiously selected and promoted for its traits, including a naturally heavy breast and richly flavored meat. The Bourbon Red was an important commercial variety through the 1930s and 1940s. As time went on, however, it declined in popularity as it was unable to compete with the industrial broad breasted varieties. Since 2002, renewed interest in the biological fitness, survivability, and superior flavor of the Bourbon Red has captured consumer interest. Industrial raised turkeys have been selectively breed to the point that commercial male turkeys rapidly grow to a weight 3 times larger than wild male turkeys in only 4 months. Their breasts grow so large, their legs become too weak to carry the weight, resulting in crippling leg injuries. In addition they cannot fly, or even reproduce on their own. Every commercially raised turkey is the result of artificial reproduction. Given the need of artificial reproduction industrial turkeys are products of an extremely small gene pool. As of today there are ONLY TWO commercial genetic strains for 280 million commercial turkeys per year. Heritage Turkeys taste more like the turkeys that Native Americans and settlers ate in the 17th century, compared to today's Butterball turkeys. Heritage-breed turkeys are a domestic breed. These types of turkeys were kept in farmyards since the ancient Mayans. However just 20 years ago, some heritage turkey breeds were nearly extinct, because of the excessive industrial factory-type. In the last few years however, those numbers are going up! What's driving this resurgence? Part of the story is flavor. Others are also growing more conscience of what there are actually buying in their grocery stores. Industrially raised turkeys are confined so tightly that each bird has only between 2.5 to 4 square feet of space each. This space only gets tighter as the turkeys grow larger. The dusty, ammonia-filled air inside these facilities is a consequence of poor ventilation and overcrowding. This highly contaminated air is associated with a host of health issues, including respiratory damage and irritated, swollen eyes. Because a single worker may be responsible for the care of as many as 30,000 birds, these and other illnesses and injuries can easily go unnoticed, or worse ignored because of their expected date of slaughter. Crowding at this level can cause turkeys, a naturally curious animal, to injure each other with sharp beaks and toes -- a concern to producers because it damages the flesh -- so turkeys often have portions of their beaks and toes removed at a young age. Turkeys are routinely debeaked, a painful process in which part of the sensitive, nerve-filled beak is removed using a hot blade, shears, or a high-voltage electrical current. It is also a practice for turkeys to have a portion of their toes removed with surgical shears. Each mutilation is done without pain reliever or anesthetic of any kind. Being raised on pastures gives our turkeys the opportunity to spread their wings. It offers a diverse and more healthy diet of greens and insects. It allows the turkeys to be turkeys. Visit our website, call/text, or e-mail to reserve your thanksgiving turkey today!