Farming

About 90 per cent of turkeys in the UK are reared in standard production systems on the floor of large, purpose-built sheds or converted farm buildings (similar to those used to rear meat chickens). Up to 25,000 birds may be housed in one building and, aside from the feeders and drinkers that are provided, the sheds are often barren, with few opportunities for the birds to express natural behaviours such as perching, ground pecking, and foraging.

Turkeys are also housed in ‘pole-barns’ (in which the upper part of the house walls are open, allowing in natural light and air, but the environment may still be barren), or free-range or organic systems in which the turkeys also have access to an outdoor range area.

Turkeys can reach industry target weights, which can be as much as 25 kilogrammes for a male bird, in 20 weeks. Birds ready for slaughter/killing are caught by teams of ‘catchers’ who put them into crates for transportation to the slaughterhouse.

In the breeding sector (those birds, or ‘parent stock’, that produce the turkeys which are then reared for meat) the vast majority of female turkeys (hens) are artificially inseminated. This is to prevent injury to the hen by the male breeding turkey (stag) and helps to ensure successful fertilisation. Teams of trained workers gather semen from the stags, which tend to be kept separately to make this process easier.

We’re working in lots of different ways to try to improve the conditions in which all turkeys are reared, transported and slaughtered/killed.