Our Qualicum Bronze turkeys are a blend of 4 seperate genepools. In 2003, we started with some Primitive Broad Breasted Bronze from Rochester hatcheries. They had great friendly personalities, foraged extremely well, remained healthy while living with chickens, and were an absolute hit at the fall fair. This same year, we also acquired some Wishard Bronze from a private breeder in the Fraser Valley. I found them much slower growing than the Rochester birds, but they did reach full standard weight at 1 year. They were more vulnerable to Blackhead disease and only 2 out of 5 hens survived to maturity. The Wishard were also much less friendly than the Rochester birds.

The above Tom has excellent conformation for a tom turkey. He was Reserve Bird in Show at the Cowichan Club show in 2013

During the spring of 2004, we moved our small flock to Spider Lake where they caught the attention of the community's wild (feral) turkey population. We've received various accounts of the actual timeframe but generally speaking, in the 70s, some farmers released a mixture of Royal Palm and Eastern Wild  turkeys into the wild. We counted 17 "wild-ish" descendants of that release in 2004. They consisted of a wide range of colour patterns including regular bronze, blackwinged bronze, royal palm, sweetgrass, and an intermediate between sweetgrass and blackwing that I call currently refer to as cinnamon.

 The Bronze Hen on the right has excellent conformation and colour for a Bronze hen. She has won more than her fair share of Turkey Championships.

 Tom below is an example of the Blackwing Bronze. 

Within a year, the wild flock had moved onto our farm and completely merged with our turkeys. These birds were very flighty, roosted high up in the trees, and were half the size of our Standard Bronze.  Males dressed out to only 14 pounds, same as our standard bronze hens. The wild eggs had great fertility and hatch rates, but the resulting poults had little immunity to living on a mixed poultry farm. Blackhead and swollen sinuses were the two main culprits. The first year we hatched the wild, we lost 80% of the poults, then lost 50% in the second year of hatching. After two years of disciplined selection, we were no longer observing significant losses. We then added a couple hens from a Primitive Broad Breasted flock up island, blended all lines, and then selected seperate Bronze and Blackwing/Sweetgrass lines while intentionally retaining much variation.

We have gone back and blended our Canadian Champion Bronze line with our Blackwing/Sweetgrass line. They are adapted to our West Coast climate and can thrive sharing pasture with other fowl. Very blackhead resistant! These are the turkeys for the self-sufficient farmer wanting to start their own flock. They reach market weight in 26-28 weeks. Live toms average 32-36 pounds and hens 20-22.

The hens on the right and below display lighter shades of the Blackwing Bronze spectrum. We are hoping to selectively breed our flock towards this colour range.