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The UK's 'rule of six' has meant turkey farmers have had to come up with inventive ways to reduce the size of their birds just months before Christmas. /CFP
For many British people, there's nothing more traditional than gathering extended family and friends around the table on Christmas Day to tuck into roast turkey. And as festive logic dictates, the bigger the family, the more guests and the larger the turkey needs to be.
But gatherings of more than six have now been banned in pandemic-fighting regulations that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned could last for six months – well beyond Christmas Day on 25 December.
That has left the nation's turkey farmers with a big problem: How to downsize their birds.
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Farmers usually hatch their turkey eggs in the spring and fatten up the birds during the summer, ready for them to be eaten by families across the nation at Christmas.
With the government regulations announced so late in the turkey cycle, farmers have had to quickly decide what size birds people want.
Millions of turkeys are consumed every year in the UK. /CFP
One of the options available is to slaughter the birds a week to 10 days earlier than usual, which would reduce the size, then freeze them until Christmas time.
However, it is claimed that turkeys lose some of their flavor if slaughtered early and also would rule out a large number of customers who want a fresh, free-range bird.
To overcome this, some farmers have been putting their turkeys on special diets so they don't have to slaughter them prematurely.
Demand for turkeys in the UK has declined since 2003, when 22 million birds were eaten compared with only 14 million last year as more and more people decide to turn their attention to other options, both meat-based and plant-based.
The British Poultry Council is urging customers to "take what's available, even if it's a slightly larger bird."