Kelly’s Bronze: Essex birds

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Earlier this year I went to the Kelly’s Bronze farm in Essex for a day.

Kelly’s Bronze specialises in Bronze breed turkeys and have been at it for some 40 years. Having visited Copas Turkeys before, I was curious to find out how they do things differently.

While Copas just rears the turkeys from poults, Kelly’s works on the whole operation – from inseminating the birds to hatching to rearing to the final slaughter.

It was incredibly interesting to see that Kelly’s have been tracking their turkey gene pool for around 15 years so they can continue to produce the best turkey they can. It was also interesting to find out that Bronze turkeys, as a breed, almost became extinct.

Read my piece on slow-reared turkey on Yahoo