Three Massachusetts Farms Want $5.09 to $8.99 a Pound for a Thanksgiving Turkey. One Pre-Order Closes Saturday.

The turkey in the photo is a wild one in Woburn, not a farm bird. The ones people are paying for are on farm order forms, and the prices are out.

Quabbin Harvest, a food co-op in Orange, is taking pre-orders for Diemand Farm turkeys at $5.09 a pound, with pickup starting Nov. 21. Orders close Oct. 31, which is Saturday. Shepherd Farm in West Townsend lists $5.49 a pound, with a small bird of roughly 10 to 15 pounds at $55 to $83 and a large one of 23 to 29 pounds at $127 to $160. Its turkeys are sold fresh, a few days before the holiday. Codman Community Farms in Lincoln charges $8.99 a pound for pasture-raised birds from 11 to 27 pounds, takes a $25 deposit, and sells them frozen, harvested in October.

At those rates a 15-pound turkey costs about $76 from the co-op, about $82 from Shepherd and about $135 from Codman. That's my arithmetic from the posted per-pound prices, before any deposit or tax.

The price gap isn't a quality verdict. Codman says its birds are pasture-raised, fed certified organic and non-GMO grain supplements and sold with no salt added. Shepherd says it raises birds on its own farm and doesn't inject them. I can't test either claim and haven't tasted any of them. What the pages do tell you is the trade: lower per-pound prices at the co-op and at Shepherd, a higher one for pasture-raised frozen birds at Codman.

My read, as opinion: if you want a farm bird, the Oct. 31 co-op deadline is the earliest one I found. Pickup dates matter as much as price, so check them before putting money down.

What we still don't know: whether supermarket turkeys will undercut any of these this year, and whether the farms will have any left after the pre-order windows close.