Pasture Raised Turkey

Not your typical Thanksgiving Turkey - 

At Pasture to Fork, we believe in exceptional food, and aspire to raise great-tasting holiday centerpieces that become a lasting memory long after the guests have left. That’s why we raise turkeys on pasture in nature’s template, for unparalleled flavor and texture, beyond-organic nutrition, and to wow your family and friends. 

Pastured turkey meat has a reputation among some people for being lean (due to the exercise the animals get) but we share cooking strategies and techniques with you that have proven to turn out very tender, flavorful, and of course, highly nutritious turkeys that guests cannot stop talking about. 

As is the case with other pasture-based meats, pasture-raised turkey is much higher in omega-3 fatty acids, creating a more balanced ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fats than factory-farmed confinement turkey.

What Size Turkey Should I Order?

If your goal is to have ample leftovers, aim for 1½ pounds per person. For example, if you're serving 8 people, buy a 12-pound turkey. That said, a smaller turkey will be more bone as a percentage of its weight, which means there's less edible weight. You should also consider the adult to children ration. If there will be a number of children in your group, you will obviously not need as large a turkey.

However, the number one complaint we get post-Thanksgiving is that there were no leftovers. :) Just sayin...

Here is our promise for your Thanksgiving Turkey:

1. No antibiotics ever, or growth promoters or vaccines; Our turkeys don’t do drugs!
2. After spending about 4 weeks in our heated brooder to develop their first feathers, they live outdoors on untreated pasture. No confinement-raised turkey from Pasture to Fork!
3. Moved frequently (at least every two days) to a new area of fresh grass.
4. All-natural diet high in grass and bugs. While we feed a GMO-free chemical-free grain to round out their diet, turkeys are excellent foragers and if allowed daily fresh grass, will consume up to 50% of their feedstuffs in grass and bugs.
5. Raised in small flocks (no more than 300 birds) to minimize stress. The industry crams thousands of birds into a football-field-sized barn where they are constantly pressured by stress caused by the sheer numbers. This could be equated to the crowd in a sports stadium during a game (imagine living there all your life). This, by the way, is also why sub-therapeutic antibiotics are needed to keep the birds functioning.
6. Harvested humanely, using mostly hand labor, in our on-farm processing facility. We purposely eschew USDA processing due to their required use of chlorine baths and citric-acid sprays. In a small hands-on facility like ours, we process in a far cleaner environment (simply because of scale) than high-speed thousands-of-birds-a-day mechanized processors. Because of this, chlorine baths and citric-acid sprays are simply not necessary.

Wading through Turkey Labels -

Shopping for a responsibly raised turkey can be very confusing. The labels range from “free-range”, to “organic”, to “all-natural”, to “cage-free.” Every purveyor, it seems, claims to be above and beyond on some front. That said, virtually no grocery stores and supermarkets will try to sell you a pasture-raised turkey (not to mention GMO-free, antibiotic-free, or on-farm humanely processed), so you probably will not find that label there—though if you do, you can’t be sure the turkey really is pasture-raised unless you know the farm who produced it.

At Pasture to Fork, you can visit us anytime to see for yourself, or simply follow us to keep up with all the happenings on our farm. We are passionate about providing beyond-organic clean food and are always glad to answer any questions you have about our processes, protocols, or philosophies.