Game cover is in full bloom & the stags start to show

The next few weeks are very exciting as lot will happening on the farm. At the beginning of September our game cover will be in full bloom which looks beautiful. If you are lucky enough to be walking by or catch our turkey cam, you might see some rather tall heads popping up amongst the turkeys. These are the stags and probably what you envisage when you think of a turkey.

Turkey Fact Did you know that we use 98% hens or female turkeys as they perform a lot better than male turkeys otherwise known as stags or Toms (would you believe!). If you didn’t know Tom Senior, who started the business, his father was called Tom and Tom Senior’s son is called Tom! That is a lot of Toms.

Right back to Toms, no I mean turkeys. We keep a small percentage of stags so we can reach the bigger weights. Most of our turkeys grow between four to nine kilos but like any natural product there are always a few which are tiny or super large but this can often only be one or two. The Copas family always put their customers first. Producing that most important part of the most important meal of the year is very stressful and they want to make sure everyone goes away ecstatic. As our chairman Tom A Copas would say –

"I don’t want my customers to be ‘satisfied’ – I want them to be ecstatic”

Turkey Fact Did you know, the biggest turkey that will fit in a standard household oven is a nine kilo turkey. If it’s any bigger you might need to remove the legs. But nine kilos will feed eighteen people so that’s a big family Christmas and you should definitely have some left overs ready to mix with your coronation sauce. If you haven’t tried it, make sure you do this Christmas as you will want to order a second jar.

This is also the time when we add oats to the turkey’s diet. As the birds reach full maturity we need to ensure they don’t grow too quickly and oats are perfect for offering the birds a balanced diet during this time. We have also found this gives a very bright whiteness to the meat which we know everyone is a big fan off although Tom Senior would want you all eating brown meat if he could. He’d say that’s where all the flavour is!