Want the Best Turkey? Reserve Now

Want the Best Turkey? Reserve Now

Think it’s too early to think turkey? Not if you want one of the best fresh, local turkeys you’ll ever present to your friends and family on Thanksgiving Day. You want something better than the Whateverball you find at the big supermarket chain? You want a bird that doesn’t need to be brined to be moist and flavorful? You want a turkey that was raised on pasture, roaming free to build good body and eating a natural, healthy diet? Then you want to head over the Coventry, Rhode Island border to the Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm in Sterling, Connecticut and reserve your turkey now.

The Hermonot Family—parents Rick & Elena and children Christopher, Jonathan, Ashley & Kate—have been raising turkeys at Ekonk Hill for fifteen years. They started with just fifteen turkeys and are now up to 2,000. At first they just raised them for friends, and then friends of friends of wanted them and then they were in business. They raise both heritage breeds and the more modern Broad Breasted White breed.

The Whites are raised on pasture once they arrive on the farm in June or July at around six weeks of age. They get about 20% of their diet from the pasture—grass, bugs and worms—and the rest of their diet comes from grain feed kept in rain-covered self-feeders out in the pasture. The pasture is completely open for the turkeys, with the exception of electric fencing, more to keep predators out then the turkeys in. Whites are your typical Thanksgiving turkey and the Whites I’ve bought over the last six years have been beautifully plump and extremely juicy with gorgeous bright skin.

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The heritage breeds—Blue Slate, Narragansett, Royal Palm, Bourbon Red and Black Spanish—are raised in a covered pen at the front of the farm. This is somewhat for show, because they are much prettier birds, and also because heritage breeds have not been bred to not fly, like the Whites have been. The heritage turkeys share the same diet as the Whites, though there isn’t as much grass available to them since they have to be kept from flying away. Heritage breeds are more expensive but those who buy them rave about their slightly gamier taste and excellent meat quality.

Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm is the only farm in the area that raises turkeys in this quantity on pasture, which helps them to grow slower, making them a lot more flavorful. The turkeys are out in the pasture from the time they arrive on the farm until a few days before Thanksgiving, and then they are processed right there on site so they don’t get trucked away. Not travelling to a processor avoids creating a lot of stress which can affect the quality of the meat.

So what are you waiting for? I’ve given you more than enough information to see that these are the best turkeys for miles around. Head on down to Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm. Or you can call, but really, what’s prettier than a drive through Western RI at this time of year? Ekonk Hilll even has a corn maze and a great farm store too. So make the trip, and then try to contain yourself until Thanksgiving arrives.

Ekonk Hill Turkey Farm, 227 Ekonk Hill Rd., Sterling, CT, open 11:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. – 7:00 p.m. Saturday & Sunday
 

Photos David Dadekian