Discover What Makes
Our Turkeys
Special
The Life of a Forest Lodge Turkey
After hatching, our turkey chicks are carefully reared in specially designed, temperature-controlled barns, providing the warm, safe environment they need during their first few weeks.
From six weeks old, they are ready to explore the spacious surroundings of our Essex farm. They receive fresh straw bedding every day, with plenty of bales for perching and unrestricted access to nutritionally balanced feed. We never use growth promoters; instead, our own home-grown wheat forms an important part of their naturally balanced diet.
Our free-range bronze turkeys can often be spotted from the footpaths around the farm, roaming freely across their own five-acre paddock, pecking at sunflowers and foraging naturally in the soil. Don’t expect to see much of them on a rainy day, though—they aren’t fond of getting wet and will usually be found perched comfortably beneath the shelter!
“more than twice the age of a standard intensive turkey”
Unlike most commercially produced turkeys, our birds are reared slowly to full maturity, following a natural timescale. By the time they reach your Christmas table, they are more than twice the age of a standard intensively reared turkey.
This slower growth allows a natural layer of fat to develop, helping to keep the meat beautifully succulent and full of flavour—and avoiding the dry texture so often associated with turkey.
Our Unique Process
Our turkeys are prepared here on the farm using traditional methods passed down through the generations.
Each bird is carefully dry-plucked by hand—a highly skilled and labour-intensive process—before being dry-aged and game-hung in our cold store for two weeks. This final stage allows the flavour to deepen and the meat to become beautifully tender, succulent and easy to cook.
Where our turkeys go next…
After our turkeys have been tastefully prepared ready for the oven, we carefully wrap them with grease proof paper and place them into one of our easy to carry boxes to ensure they remain in perfect condition for Christmas day.
All our Christmas turkeys are either collected directly from our farm gate by our local customers, or delivered to a select handful of local butchers and farm shops by a member of our small team.