People are funny about turkey weights. When I was filling their orders last Thanksgiving people insisted on having specific weights and that they had ordered that weight. We would typically respond that we can only deliver what nature grows for us.

Maybe turkeys on farms are not supposed to 30 pounds but we have wild turkeys roaming the streets in our town and those are BIG birds! From my hunter friends who've eaten wild turkeys there is not a lot of fat on them either.

But one reason mentioned for smaller turkeys is to try to have them be a year-round option. But a six-plus pound bird is still pretty big for the average family.

I was talking to someone recently who lives on an acreage outside of town. A year or two back she raised two turkeys from chicks. When they had then prepared, one of them was 55 pounds--dressed.

We see groups of wild turkeys who probably live in Wilderness Park most of the year foraging beside one of the highways just outside Lincoln from time to time, I'd hate to have one of them chasing me, they're monsters.

I remember my grandmother getting these 25 pound birds, she'd do two of them for Thanksgiving, because she had two seatings of about 20 each for Thanksgiving dinner. (She'd cook one the day before and store it on the porch overnight, throwing it back in the oven to reheat between the two servings for dinner.)