Domesticated Turkey - Turkey Breeds

Turkey Breeds

Main article: List of turkey breeds See also: Heritage turkey

• The Broad-breasted White is the commercial turkey of choice for large scale industrial turkey farms, and consequently is the most consumed variety of the bird. Usually the turkey to receive a "presidential pardon", a U.S. custom, is a Broad breasted White.
• The Broad-breasted Bronze is another commercially developed strain of table bird.
• The Standard Bronze looks much like the broad-breasted, except that it is single breasted, and can naturally breed.
• The Bourbon Red turkey is a smaller non-commercial breed with dark reddish feathers with white markings.
• Slate, or Blue Slate, turkeys are a very rare breed with beautiful gray-blue feathers.
• The Black ("Spanish Black", "Norfolk Black") has very dark plumage with a green sheen.
• The Narragansett Turkey is a popular heritage breed named after Narraganset Bay in New England.
• The Chocolate is a rarer heritage breed with markings similar to a Black Spanish, but light brown instead of black in color. Common in the Southern U.S. and France before the Civil War.
• The Beltsville Small White is a small heritage breed, whose development started in 1934. The breed was introduced in 1941 and was admitted to the APA Standard in 1951. Although slightly bigger and broader than the Midget White, both are often mislabeled.
• The Midget White is a smaller heritage breed.