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Specialty turkeys are Thanksgiving treat Tuesday, November 21, 2006
ST. PAUL (AP) -- Victoria Dieringer got to meet her Thanksgiving dinner.
The grocery store clerk from Richfield recently drove to a small farm near Wabasha to view some "heritage turkeys," including one that will find its way to her family's table on Thanksgiving. A handful of small-farm operators in Minnesota raise the specialty breed, and aficionados say it's a much more flavorful bird than the traditional tom.
You have to taste it to fully understand, Dieringer said, though the heritage birds are said to have meatier legs and narrower breast muscles.
Heritage turkeys will still make up only a tiny portion of the birds produced for Thanksgiving feats by the state's conventional turkey industry, the largest in the nation. That sector is expected to produce 44.5 million white turkeys this year, compared with likely just a few thousand heritage turkeys.
The rare birds aren't cheap. Bourbon reds, the most popular of the heritage breeds, take almost an entire farming year to raise, roughly three times as long as commercialdy raised white turkeys. The most often quoted price from breeders and retailers is just under $5 a pound, meaning $75 for a 15-pound tom or $40 for an 8-pound hen.
Most heritage turkey breeders are farmers who earn most of their income in other ways. At Nature's Little Farms near Wabasha, Harry and Diane Leonhardt are primarily dairy farmers but for the past few years have been raising heritage turkeys that they mostly sell to long-term customers like Dieringer.
You can also buy the birds through some specialty stores like Cooks of Crocus Hill in St. Paul, but if you don't have your own heritage bird reserved by now you're probably too late for this year.
"Heritage turkeys will always be a niche market," said Jacquie Jacob, a poultry specialist at the University of Minnesota's Department of Animal Science. "Fifty to 100 birds to an operation is typical. To pay 50 to 60 bucks for a small turkey is not going to generate a lot of demand."
Farmers raising them often report losing big numbers of the not-too-bright beasts to predators. Diane Leonhardt started with 135 birds this year, but lost about one-third to coyotes after the flock was spooked by a wind storm, broke out of their night enclosure and wandered into a pasture.
"When they go that far, all the coyotes have to do is walk around and pick them up," Leonhardt said. "I said to myself, 'There goes my profit."'
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