WESTPORT, Mass. — Bill and Sherri Battles know the best way to save their rare red, gray and brown turkeys is to eat them.
Owners of a 25-acre farm in Westport, Mass., the Battles are among a small but growing number of farmers raising breeds of turkey with bloodlines that date back centuries yet are quite different — in size, taste and price — from the vast majority of birds sold at today's supermarkets.
Known as "heritage" turkeys, their survival may well hinge on Americans' willingness to create a market for them by putting them on their Thanksgiving tables.
"These are breeds that in order to keep them from becoming extinct, farmers have to raise them and people have to be willing to try them," said Sherri Battles, 44, as her husband placed a feed bucket in front of a gobbling gang of Narragansett, Bourbon Red, Chocolate and other heritage turkeys on a recent November day.
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