Narragansett turkey

Cultural

The Narragansett turkey was developed in the late 17th century in southern New England, where colonial farmers crossed Spanish-imported domestic turkeys with the native [[wild-turkey|eastern wild turkey]] of the surrounding forest. The resulting breed was the dominant New England farm turkey from the 18th century through the early 20th century — productive, hardy, naturally pasture-foraging, and well-adapted to New England climate. Rhode Island and southern [[barre-ma|Massachusetts]] farmers raised Narragansetts in barnyard-and-pasture flocks of 50–500 birds, with most birds reaching slaughter weight on pasture and free-range forage with minimal supplemental grain.

The decline began in the 1930s with the development of the Broad-Breasted Bronze and accelerated dramatically after World War II with the introduction of the Broad-Breasted White. By the 1970s Narragansett populations had collapsed to a few thousand birds in the U.S. [[livestock-conservancy|The Livestock Conservancy]] classifies the breed as Threatened.

Recovery began in the 1990s through the Heritage Turkey Foundation, [[slow-food|Slow Food]] USA’s Heritage Turkey project, and a small network of heritage-turkey farms supplying the Thanksgiving market. The economic structure is straightforward: Broad-Breasted Whites cost ~$2/lb at the supermarket; heritage Narragansetts at pasture-raised farms cost ~$10–15/lb. The narrow but durable customer base of consumers willing to pay heritage prices supports the recovery. The breed is approximately 14,000 breeding birds today.

See also

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• Shares approach with: [[livestock-conservancy]] · [[dominique-chicken]]
• Member of: [[animal]]