About
Heritage: The Jeffries Family Tradition
The Jeffries family has over 40 years' experience rearing and producing great-tasting, free range, fresh turkeys. Our success in rearing a great-tasting turkey is based on selecting the right type of bird and rearing them naturally, allowing them to grow and develop. We then process them in a humane and stress-free way right here on the farm. This helps improve their great natural flavour.
Tom’s Great Grandmother had a turkey flock during World War 1 and after. The photo you can see is from 1917. We still walk amongst our turkeys in much the same way everyday and our birds roam a grassy paddock. Some things have changed – we have had chill rooms as long as Tom can remember. Henry, our eldest son, is already comfortable amongst the flock and loves the way they follow him around, our dog is not so keen as the turkeys peck his name tag!
The Jeffries family have moved farms several times and are now located at Newbold Grounds near Staverton from near Badby following the death of Tom’s father Roger. Roger had many good tales of turkey rearing for the catering trade and my favourite is of the largest turkey competition – Roger’s bird came second weighing 74lbs (think Labrador dog size!).
Now our biggest turkey is around 25lbs and will go to a local Country House Hotel for their Christmas table. Our average bird sold direct to the customer is about 14lbs. Rachel (Tom’s wife) asks for a 15lb bird but often that changes as last minute orders come in. We look forward to the collection days, the kids another year taller, climbing on the old weighing scales seeing if three of them weigh more than Grandpa! We don’t sell anything apart from Christmas turkeys, so we are focused and calm - so you can be too. Parking is easy and we grit our road if it gets icy. We look forward to seeing you and sharing our tradition.
OUR FEATHERED FAMILY
We take our first delivery of day-old chicks from the hatchery in July. We then rear them indoors until they are big and strong enough to go outside. At night, they come inside for shelter in barns with deep straw beds and plenty of air. Our turkeys are bred to mature slowly over nearly six months and are free to eat and drink whenever they please. They are fed on a GM-free diet with no additives or growth promoters.
Our processing facilities are on the farm and inspected each year to ensure they comply with food hygiene standards. Once the turkeys have been plucked we then hang them in a chill-room for at least 10 days – this helps tenderise the meat and develops its full flavour.
