Turkeys & Geese

We obviously keep our turkeys for the festive season and we favour the old fashioned, Norfolk Black turkey and the more improved Bronze. Both have dark feathers.

The Norfolk Black is regarded by some chefs, so we are told, as the ultimate turkey for eating with regards to its flavour. The flesh is slightly darker than the Bronze and slightly stronger in taste. The downside is that they are a much smaller bird, with far less meat to bone than the Bronze. They come in a very small size range from 8-11lbs (4-6kg) for hens and 14-15lbs (7-8kg) for the stags. We therefore use the Bronze bird to fill in the gaps in the sizes. The Bronze is a plumper bird which we hope suits all the different requirements that our customers may have, anything from 10-50lb (5-25kg)!!

The Bronze turkey still holds some of the more traditional characteristics as it has not been as ‘improved’ as the white turkey you can buy, therefore still providing an excellent textured and flavourful meat.

We get the day old poults in June, yes, Christmas really starts early at Hyden. They are then reared all together and spend the days out in the pastures when they are old enough to go outside. They are kept in natural light patterns and roost in a large, airy barn at night. This allows them to grow at a natural pace until they reach maturity at around 24-26 weeks. We passionately believe this really does produce a Christmas dinner to remember and we always have it on our table for Christmas. Some of our customers have been coming back to us for their Christmas turkey for 20 years so we think we must be doing something right!!

Geese are something really special. They cannot be mass produced and their production is very traditional and in that vein, it is very slow! This helps it to remain a real luxury that is pretty much only available fresh at Christmas.

We have a batch of 150 goslings every year along with a small pen of breeding geese that ‘mother’ the babies when they go outside. Our geese roam freely throughout their whole life and spend lots of time grazing out in the fields behind the house, slowly growing fat for Christmas. They are penned into open yards at night to protect them from foxes. They are 6 months old before they are killed and range in size from 4-8kg. They really do make an absolutely delicious, rather special meal for Christmas day. They come from the same breeder in Devon every year and so we can ensure we always produce the best goose that money can buy.

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