When our daughters were first in 4-H one of their earliest projects was raising turkeys. This was our first introduction to raising animals for food. Once we tasted a pasture raised heritage turkey, we could never again eat a commercially raised turkey. I do not want to delve into the conditions that commercial turkeys are raised under, suffice it to say that a bird that can stretch its wings and exercise its legs and forage will be much happier and be much tastier than a commercially bred and raised bird.
We experimented with different breeds of birds over the years, and it is important to do your own research to determine which breeds are best suited for your homestead. We enjoyed raising large breasted bronze turkeys. They were friendly, easy to pasture and gorgeous. The meat is tasty, moist, and tender. However, due to their large breast size, they must be artificially inseminated. This did not fit into our plan of self-sufficiency.
We experimented with a few other heritage breeds. We have decided that the red bourbon breed works the best for us. We like that it is a heritage breed, and that they will breed on their own. They can forage, which means we can buy less feed. They can breed, which means that we can incubate the eggs and raise the poults ourselves.
When deciding which turkey breeds to raise, take into consideration the size of the bird that you want on your table. The age at maturity since slow to mature birds will taste better. I also considered ease of breeding and temperament. For these reasons, we chose to raise Bourbon Red Heritage turkeys.