My brother once rented a house in Cornwall for Christmas and did a lot of research to source a locally bred, free-range turkey. He even rang the farm from which he had reserved his prime poultry and asked politely if the bird was free-range. The response came in a thick Cornish accent: “Free-range? Your turkey has a sea view!”
Inspired to find a bird who has lived an equally charmed life (and spurred by talk of a Christmas turkey shortage) I began googling organic turkey farms. An organic turkey costs about £100, whereas a supermarket saver equivalent might cost £35. Since there are so many expenses to consider over Christmas, I wondered if organic is actually better for the planet and for my family, or am I mindlessly paying a premium for the branding?
Before the Second World War, turkey was a rarity in the UK. Only postwar industrialisation made it affordable enough to be a Christmas staple. In the 1930s our turkey would have cost an average of a week’s wages, but today a whole bird costs a few hours’ work.
We buy about ten million turkeys every Christmas in the UK, about 90 per cent of which come from conventional large intensive farms, which hold as many as 25,000 birds. Welfare standards of these birds are known to be wanting, particularly because of a practice called beak trimming. In their natural environment, turkeys will fight for a mate and territory, but this aggression is intensified in factory farms. So, to prevent them from damaging each other, the end of the turkey’s beak is cut off when it is a day old.
Turkeys are also bred to meet demand for greater volumes of meat. The average weight of a wild male turkey is about 7.5kg, but the weight of an intensively reared one can reach 25kg. Because the males have been bred to be so big, they can’t have sex with females without seriously injuring them, so most turkeys are conceived by artificial insemination. In addition to maiming them at birth and removing their fun, farmers who rear birds this way never take them into the sunlight, because there is no legal requirement for them to access the outdoors. And finally – and in my opinion the most concerning – they are pumped with antibiotics. It is estimated that two thirds of all antibiotics worldwide are used in farm animals, not people. Much of this use is routine (to prevent disease, rather than to treat it) and enables farm animals to be kept in cramped conditions in which disease spreads easily.
Advertisement
Free-range is certainly a better lifestyle for a turkey because they are required to have at least 4m of space per bird for at least half of their life. This allows turkeys to exhibit their natural behaviours in the outdoors, resulting in stronger, healthier legs and less frustration, therefore less fighting. However, free-range farming gives no maximum figure for how many birds can be housed together.
Organic regulatory standards ensure that the birds have the best life possible. The maximum permitted flock size is no more than 1,000 turkeys and they must have continuous daytime access to an outdoor area with suitable trees and shrubs.
Beak trimming is prohibited because it prevents turkeys from foraging and antibiotics are strictly forbidden, other than as a last resort to treat unwell animals. However, they are less likely to get sick because of the better husbandry methods used to raise them.
Organic food is complicated and has its problems, but as far as turkey is concerned, it is the best option for bird and human. A growing number of companies, such as Daylesford and Coombe Organic Farm, are maintaining organic flocks of turkeys and other birds. Eversfield Organic has turkeys that were raised on the Malseed family farm on a Dartmoor pasture, fed on a diet of organic cereals, local oats and Dartmoor spring water and given toys to keep them entertained.
The Golden Turkeys website also lists lots of independent, family-run, free-range farms producing turkeys specifically for Christmas. I enjoyed reading about the families and the care they take of their birds, like the Out and About poultry farm in Shropshire, where the turkeys “range in our long grassy meadows, our geese are grazed on our clover-rich field with access to a brook. Our birds frequently dine on apples, damsons, plums and pears from our orchard.”
Advertisement
If I couldn’t get a turkey raised in a field with a Cornish sea view, I would happily take one from an orchard. Because who doesn’t like a bit of apple sauce with their Christmas lunch?
