Bourbon Red

History

The Bourbon Red was bred in the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky in the late nineteenth century. The breeding work is usually attributed to J.F. Barbee, and is thought to have been based on a particularly dark strain of Buff Turkey from Pennsylvania called the Tuscawara or Tuscarora Red, with some admixture of White Holland and Bronze stock. It was initially called the Kentucky Red or Bourbon Butternut, but became better known once the name Bourbon Red was adopted. It was accepted into the Standard of Perfection of the American Poultry Association in 1909.

In the early twentieth century it was marketed as suitable for commercial production, and soon supplanted the less productive Buff, which became rare and in 1915 was removed from the Standard of Perfection. In the interwar period the Bourbon Red was widely reared, particularly as a farm bird in the Midwest, but numbers declined rapidly after the adoption of the Broad Breasted White for industrial production.

In the twenty-first century numbers recovered and it has become the most numerous of the non-industrial heritage turkey breeds. In 1999 the Society for the Preservation of Poultry Antiquities found approximately 1000 birds, and in 2003 the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy (as it was then known) counted more than 1500. A United States population of 2147 was reported to DAD-IS for 2015, and in 2023 the world-wide population was estimated at 3000. In 2022 the Livestock Conservancy listed the conservation status of the breed as 'watch'.

The Bourbon Red is included in the Ark of Taste of the international Slow Food Foundation. It is recognized by the Entente Européenne in Europe, and by the Poultry Club of Great Britain. It is also reported from Australia, Canada and Uruguay.