The Super Mini Special has been bred to achieve hens that will meet the demand for 4kg (8.8 lb) oven ready turkeys when grown to full maturity from 22 weeks plus.

Paul Kelly [pictured above with the Super Mini Special], managing director of FarmGate Hatcheries, of Danbury in Essex said: “The 4-kg weights are so hard to get from other small breeds grown from June hatches. We’ve tried and tested this new breed over the past four years and it’s perfect for guaranteeing the 4-kg oven-ready weight band, with the stags giving great 6 to 8kg oven-ready turkeys.”

The Super Mini Special has been developed from pure bronze-feathered male and female pedigree lines used in producing the company’s Tiny and Super Mini poults — an essential feature of the breeding programme.

Mr Kelly added: “Our small breeds of bronze turkeys are the genuine article, bred from a bronze mother and a bronze father. Expensive to produce, but bullet-proof when it comes to a probing press and food journalists.

“We’re also very pleased with the meat quality of our small breeds. In our own kitchen we’ve found the Super Mini Special to have a particularly high meat yield, with delicious eating qualities and very fine textured meat.”

Limited supplies of poults of this new breed will be available, in both bronze and white, both as sexed hens and as-hatched, from mid May onwards.