A special Christmas turkey begins life long before December. Ours are reared slowly, naturally and traditionally at Orchard Farm in Devon.

Hatched in the spring and grown slowly until November and December, our Christmas turkeys spend their days ranging across grassy pasture and amongst established cider apple orchards, living a truly contented life.

The orchards provide much more than a beautiful backdrop. Turkeys naturally seek the shelter and protection of trees, and here they are able to roam, forage, explore and flap their wings beneath them. Throughout the autumn, windfall cider apples provide another source of interest, as well as food, as the birds peck their way through the fallen fruit.

It is a wonderfully simple farming system, where the turkeys become part of the wider life of the farm rather than being reared separately from it.

During the day, the turkeys have access to pasture and orchard. At night, they are brought into spacious, naturally lit barns, deeply bedded with straw, where they are protected from predators.

Alongside foraged apples, the birds are fed whole wheat, oats and a mixed cereal ration. Their straw bedding is sourced locally too, supporting the surrounding farming community and keeping unnecessary food miles to a minimum.

Our turkeys are given time to grow and mature naturally, developing proper flavour and texture and, importantly, a life well lived. When the birds reach maturity, they are slaughtered on the farm. This means there is no stressful journey away from familiar surroundings at the end of their lives.

Each turkey is then hand-plucked and traditionally hung. Hanging allows the meat to tenderise naturally and gives the flavour time to develop, an old-fashioned process that takes longer, but produces a turkey worthy of the centre of the Christmas table.

There is no great secret to producing a delicious turkey. Start with a good bird, give it a good life, don’t rush it, and take just as much care at the end as you did at the beginning.

For us, properly reared isn’t simply a label, it means birds with space to roam, trees overhead, grass beneath their feet, the freedom to forage and express their natural behaviours. It means working with farmers who care deeply about the animals they rear and keeping as much of the farming system connected to the land and local community as possible. As is so often the case with good farming, you can taste the difference on the plate. That’s why we are so proud to put them on your table at such a special time of year.