Our Organic Turkeys are always a popular Christmas treat and we thought you might like to read about where they come from and what makes them so special! 

Eversfield Organic Norfolk Black Turkeys

Our organic turkeys are the traditonal Norfolk Black Turkeys which are bred on small organic turkey farm based just a few short miles from Eversfield Organic. 

The Norfolk Black  Turkey is a slow growing breed – unlike some breeds used in commercial turkey farming, which are chosen because they grow very fast and are sometimes even  ’forced’ under intensive conditions to produce unnaturally large birds for the Christmas market.

Our local turkey farm is one of the very few organic turkey producers in the UK to be breeding and hatching their own Christmas turkeys, which take 9 months to mature in natural surroundings without any forcing.

The farm keeps 6 ’stags’ (male turkeys) and about 30 breeding hens.  During the mating cycle,  the stags are allowed to run freely with their own small group of hens in the comfort of large open grassy pens.   This stops the stags from becoming too territorial and bossy and gives them just enough work to do.

This year , the eggs were laid in February and placed in incubators against the cold winter with the first chicks hatching on 30th April.

Oranic farming is all about knowing where your food comes from and ensuring that livestock are raised without chemicals or pesticides on a natural diet. 

The organic turkeys we sell at Christmas live a pretty good life. They’re allowed to enjoy natural behaviour – they fly, they perch and enjoy pecking about the orchard and surrounding fields. This natural behaviour results in the best quality turkey meat with excellent texture and flavour. The owners further develop this by feeding a supplementary diet of home grown organic cereals, peas and wheat.  They also discovered the birds like to eat acorns !

With the utmost attention to welfare, the birds don’t experience any stress when it comes to slaughter, they’re despatched humanely and plucked at the farm before being sent to Eversfield Organic and delivered to our customers.

Each Turkey is ready prepared to roast in the oven, so all you need do is add your favourite stuffing and all the trimmings for a delicious Christmas Day feast!

Click here to return to the Eversfield Organic home page

With chilly winds, rain and sleet across Dartmoor and the South West, our cattle are now cosily installed in their large winter barns where they can enjoy deep straw beds and plenty of organic food. Our Aberdeen Angus cattle are sturdy with thick coats so why do we bring them indoors you may ask?
Well, the main reason is that we need to protect our organic pasture during the wet and muddy winter months.  The hooves of cattle are flat and can turn a green meadow into a muddy bog within a few weeks during wet weather.  The second reason is that the organic grass and forage which is the mainstay of the cattle’s diet does not grow as strongly during winter ‘hibernation’ when there is less sunshine and colder temperatures. We simply wouldn’t have enough natural grass to feed all the cows! 

So whilst they’re in the barns, we feed them on hay and silage collected from our fields during the summer months (read posts on silage & hay July 17th & July 23rd)) and they also have access to fresh drinking water and plenty of room to move about and sleep.

Our new bull ‘Elevation’ (read September 11th) has settled in well with his lady friends and the entire herd will now stay indoors until early spring when the pastures start to dry out and the fresh grass begins to grow. This photos shows some of our cows in one of our farmyard barns.