![]() But those colorful, playful and spritely bird breeds are on the rebound as a small group of niche farmers in South Dakota and beyond are once again breeding, raising and selling heritage turkeys as part of a growing farm-to-table agricultural movement. Known collectively as “heritage turkeys,” many of the ancient breeds almost went extinct in the late 1990s. “It was like a nice new community developed around that article, and I did not foresee that,” she said. ![]() She not only heard from consumers interested in buying birds to eat but from other small producers looking for breeding stock to expand their flocks of Bourbon Beds. Grosek said she and her husband saw a jump in interest in their Bourbon Reds following a 2020 version of this News Watch story highlighting the increased interest in heritage turkeys. They range in finished weight from 10 to 17 pounds and are priced at $8 a pound, she said. In the run-up to Thanksgiving 2023, Grosek said she is butchering 10 of her own Bourbon Red turkeys and another 10 from another area farm. “It’s a good market for us and growing all the time as there is more awareness of how your standard turkey or chicken is grown in a CAFO (concentrated animal feeding operation),” Michelle Grosek told News Watch. And they’re willing to pay more for a turkey that is locally grown in free-range conditions on farms without giant warehouses where birds are raised by the thousands and never leave until being trucked to processing plants. Many visitors to the farm across the highway from Bear Butte State Park seek a closer connection to how their food is raised. The Groseks raise Bourbon Red heritage turkeys, which not only make great table fare but are outstanding at keeping down grasshopper populations on the farm located west of state Highway 79 just north of Sturgis. “Some people went back to old ways of eating, but a percentage has decided to stick with buying locally grown products.” “We saw a big surge during COVID, but there’s still an interest and a growing interest in our turkeys,” said Michelle Grosek, who runs Bear Butte Gardens organic farm near Sturgis with her husband, Rick. While the pandemic spike has leveled off, a number of people in South Dakota remain highly interested in eschewing the cheaper, bigger white turkeys sold at chain grocery stores in favor of the smaller heritage birds grown and sold on a handful of Rushmore State organic farms. ![]() That trend included heightened interest in so-called heritage turkeys, ancient breeds of the big birds that were common in the early days of the United States but which dropped from consumer consciousness as producers turned toward the plump, big-breasted turkeys that are grown en masse and will appear on millions of American dining tables this Thanksgiving. (Dakota News Now) - During the COVID-19 pandemic, disruptions in the food production supply chain and workforce sometimes led to empty grocery shelves, pushing some consumers to turn to locally grown organic meats and produce.
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