Farm of the Week: Herb-fed Yorkshire turkey rearers looking to the future after losing their birds to avian flu cull

Their efforts were rewarded recently by their peers and by customers with the Poultry Farm of the Year Award in the Yorkshire Post Rural Awards and with sales back to the levels they had reached prior to last year’s announcements.

“Everything we produce is free range and outdoor reared,” says Edward. “That’s something we have no intention of changing and therefore will always put us at risk, but that way of life for our birds is as important to us for their welfare, either for the turkeys here at Shires Farm or at Pilmoor and Sessay where we have the chickens, just as much as their unique diet of herbs that brings our own distinctive taste and provides our most unique selling point.

“We’ve put in added precautions in terms of anti-wild bird devices, such as kites and bangers, to keep them away and thereby alleviate some risk. We are now utilising a number of management techniques to mitigate any future outbreaks. It’s about being as responsive as we can to any issues. If we see such as a large congregation of wild birds we do our level best to move them on as quickly as possible.

“We have become, we hope, far more professional in this than we perhaps were previously. We have procedures and protocol to follow that everyone is familiar with. We now put lime on any feed that may be spilled making it inedible to any bird.

Ed and Emma’s 25-acre Shires Farm at Easingwold, that they moved to in 2018, is all down to grassland with the turkeys having fixed polytunnels for cover and for their welfare. Ed says that quality animal husbandry, allied with the herbs that come from his aunt Alison and cousin Philip’s farm enterprise at Sand Hutton near Thirsk plus the quality of their state-of-the-art turkey processing facility and cutting plant in their new premises at Shires is the winning combination that sets them apart, certainly from supermarket poultry.

“The turkeys are brooded elsewhere and come to us at five weeks old towards the end of July when they can live outside. We spend a great deal of time with our turkeys making sure they are all reared in a happy environment and this year we have 10,000 that will all be delivered in the days leading up to Christmas.

“The two big differences between a supermarket bird and ours are, firstly, the age of the bird when processed, with ours being 22-23 weeks old and also dry plucked, which is a process that is more arduous but contributes to the better eating experience because if you undertake wet plucking you get more water into the turkey and this leads to a poorer taste. We also hang ours, like you would with game, for around 10-14 days which allows the meat to mature and tenderise.

“What you’re getting is more bang for our buck, because the meat is good solid quality and doesn’t disappear like some produced through wet plucking or with poorer maturity. Our meat to carcase ratio is a lot higher than you will find with supermarket turkey. Ours are between 70-75 per cent meat.

Ed tells a similar tale with their herb fed chicken that now sees them back at processing 6,000 chickens per week and twice as many over the Christmas period.

“Rather like the turkeys, we get the chicken here at four weeks old when they are ready to go outside and they are here until processing at around eight weeks old. Once again, our livestock has far more of a life than supermarket chickens that are generally processed at 27-28 days old. At eight weeks ours are double that, which adds to their maturity and taste.

“We produce double the amount of chicken for Christmas week as there is also an increased demand for chicken. They offer an alternative for a smaller gathering.

‘What we have developed, specifically for the Christmas market, is our really special chicken, our Christmas rooster. This is an eighty-to-ninety day old cockerel that grows up to five kilos and it is a fantastic alternative to a turkey, if you prefer a really traditional tasting well-flavoured chicken that will feed plenty of people.

After meticulously following all cleaning and disinfectant measures and restocking the Wilkinsons returned to selling chicken by Easter this year. Edward says that he and Emma felt so grateful for all the positive response they received from customers.

‘The destroying of all the stock, the chickens on September 20 last year and then turkeys November 20, was hard to take and we honestly thought that was it for our business that we had both worked so hard to build up.

‘Losing the turkeys was hardest because they live next to us. Our offices look over where they are and we were just a week off starting our annual processing when they got it. They were being destroyed in front of us and tipped into artic wagons, like sheep and cattle during foot and mouth. We shielded our two little girls, Letty & Martha from it.

“Although it was terrifying knowing we were going to have no cash flow and having to look after the twenty people that work for us it wasn’t so much the financial loss that concerned us. Number one was the loss of birds that were perfectly healthy and a product that we were proud of selling; and number two was whether it would do damage in terms of putting off people eating our poultry.

‘We had to refund a huge number of web orders last Christmas as it all happened so late, but it was at that point that we really did realise we had a great business because people gave us so much support and a lot offered us the opportunity to keep the money. Those things really pull you out of the earth when you are on your knees and get you going again.

‘The main part of our business is family butchers, farm shops and wholesalers who then supply those from the south coast up to the Borders, plus we supply Ocado and Costco Online Direct. We also deliver direct using DPD delivery to about 3500 homes. All our turkeys and chickens are packed in ice and insulated which gives 48-hour protection, everything is delivered on Next Day delivery.

This time last year we didn’t think we had a business. It feels very different now.