Let's Talk Turkey

I'm not fluent in turkey...at best I'm conversational.
 Though I consider myself a little bit of a linguist after some hefty doses of college French and Italian (with some study abroad dabbled in there) I can barely get by when it comes to talking turkey.  At this moment you think I'm either joking or off my rocker; but I'm completely serious. Well, sort of.

Pigs are easy.  You simply holler, "Come Pigs!", spray them with the water hose (think swimsuit models tossing their ears -- I mean long locks of beautiful hair -- from shoulder to shoulder and you can envision the pigs relishing in this luxury) and the whole lot of swine will follow you, more or less.  Though less intelligent than pigs and definitely more herd-oriented, the cattle are even easier.  "Come cow-ees! Come on cow-ays!" I generally yell at the top of my lungs while astride our little red 4-wheeler and as long as a leader volunteers to saunter my direction the whole herd will come ambling behind me to wherever the destination paddock of fresh salad bar lies.  Now picture my husband Weldon and maybe an extra person or two walking slowly behind the herd to "pressure" them my way and you have just witnessed in words a mini, modern cattle drive.  Look out Lonesome Dove! But turkeys are another story...

I should add a disclaimer that we've only added pastured, heritage breed Bourbon Red Turkeys to our Emerald Glen Farm operation this year -- our fourth season.  We decided to start small with a batch of 75 for our first experiment/learning curve (and an expensive one at that as turkey poults (a.k.a. chicks) were $9 each -- and that's before you feed & raise them...no wonder they're so pricey to buy at market!)  Typically, when farmers talk about raising turkeys you get the same response, "Good luck! For the first weeks you can hardly keep 'em alive and once they're old enough to be hardy you can hardly keep 'em around to kill 'em!" Gee thanks, that sounds like a blast. We went forward with the idea anyway.  I'm thankful to say that we didn't experience either of those problems to the extent we expected.

Our Bourbon Red Adolescents

The first success we're attributing to the decision to use heritage breed birds.  The classic gobbler on the market (even from "eco-aware" and small farms) are white, broad-breasted hybrid varieties that plump up to be big 'ol monsters that can't fly off anywhere, mature faster (at roughly 16 weeks) and fit ever so snugly in your roasting pan. On principle, they were out of the question as an option for us because these birds can't reproduce naturally.  Their "breed" has been so altered to suit the market demand for size and a huge breast that they truly cannot reproduce without artificial insemination at the hatcheries.  As a farm with the word "sustainable" in the mix of our philosophy, the idea didn't sit right with us.  So...heritage breed it was.  And with this decision came a bird with stronger genetics to survive past infancy, a heightened athleticism, an admittedly smaller breast, and should we choose to, the option to keep our own breeding stock for future generations.  Needless to say, we got our batch through the brooder stage without a hitch and very few losses.  We were pleasantly relieved but knew we still had a long road ahead of us to make the 22(ish)-week mark for heritage breed maturity.

Weldon with today's Tom Turkey #1

We'd been accustomed to having chickens around in batches of about a thousand and it was clear from the start that turkeys are very different from chickens.  However elementary that statement may sound, when you look at a day-old chicken and a day-old turkey they appear relatively similar. And when you picture an adult from each of these species, it's easy to wonder how different could they really be?  The best explanation I have is that while chickens are skiddish, jumpy, and very vocal when you're near them, turkeys are more calm, naturally inquisitive, and have a sort of curious and endearing personality all their own.  It became an interesting daily ritual to walk across the barnyard and suddenly sense an eery presence.  Looking behind me I'd find a group of silent turkeys, necks out-stretched, lanky legs moving like stilts, and their bodies bobbing side-to-side like teetering bowling pins as they hurried after me to get in on whatever the action might be.  For anyone having seen the Jurassic Park films, these are your neighborhood version of velociraptors minus the gory outcome.  Regardless of the creepiness with which I've just described them, the turkeys were enjoyable and distinctive from the get go.  And this sentiment followed them from the brooder to the pasture when we first launched them in the field with their very own range shelter.

The second "success" (and I use that term very loosely), keeping them around, we attribute to the fact that we didn't have them long enough to allow them to get very far!  Here's what happened... As the turkeys grew to "adolescence" in the brooder they began roosting high in the rafters of the tobacco barn or in the branches of the dogwood tree near the brooder, so it was no surprise after their pasture re-location when most of them began hunkering down for nighttime in the oaks, maples, and hickories on the edge of pasture near their range shelter.  This free range model worked beautifully for the first few weeks; but then disaster struck.  Within two nights we lost 40 birds to predators.  Without a mother to train them like wild turkeys to roost in pines or cedars with thicker cover, they were advertising themselves as bait!  Whether by owl, bobcat, raccoon, coyote, or a combination of any of the above, in the morning we were deflated to find blood and feathers under the trees (but oddly no other remains).  As farmers, we're accustomed to having occasional issues from predation -- it's never pleasant, but comes with the job.  This was, by far, the most devastating loss we'd suffered in terms of sheer numbers in a short period of time.  Needless to say, the next night Weldon was able to catch less than a dozen of the survivors and brought them back to roost in safety at the barn until a Plan B could be established.  As is our normal practice, he went back in the fields at dark to close our Egg Mobile full of roosting laying hens.  In an oddly surprising discovery, the rest of the few living turkeys had sought shelter in the Egg Mobile and were cozied up with their feathered sisters.  Huh! If it works for them, it'd work for us.

I'm in charge of the eviscerating

For the duration of this season we've kept our dwindling flock of turkeys (from 75 down to 10) with the pastured hens where they'd gallivant around the fields by day and roost in the Egg Mobile by night (re-opening in 2012 as our Gobbledy-Go).  While disappointed to be unable to add turkeys to our list of products for sale as we'd hoped, we're still enjoying the opportunity to have two of our own turkeys on our Thanksgiving tables this week.  Another achievement on our long list of homestead firsts.  This afternoon two of our toms had a "date with destiny" as we home processed them for Thursday's festivities.  Here's hoping for a satisfying eating experience!

We are hopeful that training next year's new batch of young turkeys to keep the Gobbledy-Go as home base will save them from lighting the night sky with neon lights reading, "FREE Turkey Dinner!".  As for talking turkey, I'm still working on my high pitched, "chock, chock, chock, chock" as the situation calls for it. Some days it sounds like a broken record for a coffee commercial, but my highest achievement thus far was last week's trek re-uniting three turkeys from one field to a neighboring field where the rest of the flock had been moved that morning.  I successfully talked turkey long enough for them to follow me over the hill to their buddies.  Along the way they even chock-ed back a time or two.  I was proud of myself.  Never thought I'd add that one to my resume!

Being our first pastured, home-raised Thanksgiving turkey experience, I don't yet have any cooking tips or how-to's of my own to offer this year.  BUT, I'm a huge fan of Shannon Hayes' books and e-newsletters about pasture-based meats and she's recently posted a great article about cooking & eating pastured local turkey.  Here's where I'm going for my inaugural guidelines:  http://grassfedcooking.com/2011/pastured-turkey-cooking-tips-2011/

Happy Thanksgiving!