Christmas

With the escalating concerns about the provenance of what goes on our plates, including standards of animal welfare and food miles, many of us may be considering the moral value of the goodies filling our shelves in time for the Christmas period.

Luckily for those living in Hertfordshire, there is the option of a Christmas turkey - so local that you may even share its postcode!

For the second year running, city worker Charlie Pyper and his Swedish girlfriend Kristina Dalborg are moonlighting from their day jobs to rear Bronze turkeys, in their home village of Brent Pelham.

Charlie’s inspiration for the turkeys came from an episode of the BBC TV show Jimmy’s Farm in the summer of 2007.  In their first year Charlie and Kristina reared 50 turkeys, and after the fun they had doing it, not to mention the rave reviews from all their customers, this year they’ve upped the numbers to 157.

From dawn until dusk the birds enjoy a grassy meadow pen and come night time they’re tucked up in the safe confines of a straw filled barn.

Charlie Pyper and friend

Under the free range scheme the couple are able to keep over 300 turkeys in the barn but choose to keep just over half this number so they benefit for even more space.

"It's been a bit of a learning curve, to say the least" said Charlie, "Kristina knew how to keep horses, but all I'd had to look after before this was a three legged cat!"

The turkeys are lovingly fed as naturally as possible with fresh fruits and berries harvested from the hedgerows lining the North Hertfordshire countryside.

Continuing the green theme, Charlie and Kristina compensated for all their hard work in a cider brewing weekend in the autumn, using the ample apple harvest from the gardens of family and friends. Of course, the turkeys benefited from the party too, as they provided a handy recycling service for the remaining fruit pulp.

So have the couple become attached to their flock? "They're really very, very sweet" said Charlie, "They'll come up to you, peck you, you can scratch their bellies… and when the time came for them to go off to the processors it was very sad, and there was a bit of a tear in my eye! 

Listen to Charlie speak to Stephen Rhodes about his turkeys here: