The boom in heritage turkeys

I sent my post asking what is behind rocketing turkey numbers to DAD-Net and received this interesting comment from Marjorie Bender, Research & Technical Program Director, American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, which she kindly agreed to share here:

The growth is reported as occurring in the US, but the reported numbers are much larger than make sense to me.

The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy has been actively researching and promoting non-industrial, naturally mating turkey varieties for over 10 years. ALBC has periodically censused this population. In 1997 the breeding population (male and female) of naturally mating turkeys was 1335. In 2003, the breeding population had more than tripled, rising to 4412. In 2006, the population had more than doubled again, reaching a total of 10,404 breeding birds.

I don’t know where their numbers came from, or how they are counting. ALBC counts breeding stock, not number of head raised.

In 1997 ALBC initiated some research on the health of the immune systems of several varieties of naturally mating turkeys and an industrial strain. The naturally mating turkeys had a significantly more robust immune system. At about the same time Slow Food USA contacted ALBC about getting ‘heritage turkeys’ on their members’ dining tables. We provided them with contacts for hatcheries and breeders and they linked them up with consumers. The main food editor at the New York Times taste-tested several and LOVED them. She wrote a wonderful article raving about them. People started looking for Heritage Turkeys, and folks started raising them but with trouble. ALBC developed a production manual and workshop — How to Raise Heritage Turkeys on Pasture — which has educated a number of people. ALBC also conducted breeder selection clinics to improve the quality of the varieties – most of which had suffered from lack of selection of the decades. The market has continued to grow, as has the motivation to produce these.

Thanks, Marjorie.

And W. Stephen Damron, a professor at the Animal Science Department at Oklahoma State University had this to add.

I’m guessing that part of this is better reporting (perhaps just separating out the turkeys from chickens in the counts) and part of it is that turkey is perceived as a “cut above” chicken as a food and is probably being used more in some developing countries (those with population segments that can afford it) as a stepping stone to “better” diets.

If you look at heirloom breeds of turkeys (not the modern big breasted type), you find that the turkey is actually much hardier than it is given credit for and can forage for itself in situations where the chicken can’t.