Home › Business › Local Business
Farmers tout organic methods for raising turkeys
Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune
Tribune
Organic turkey farmer Wendy McGuire holds protective netting up over her head as she enters the turkey pen at feeding time. McGuire's farm in Stanley, Gallina del Sol, is relatively small, providing about 200 turkeys to families every Thanksgiving.
Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune
Tribune
Turkeys roam freely inside a large pen on the Gallina del Sol farm in Stanley, about 45 miles east of Albuquerque. Owner Wendy McGuire raises turkeys for Thanksgiving and geese for Christmas. Organic turkeys are more expensive by the pound, but McGuire still sold out of turkeys by mid-September.
Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune
Tribune
Turkey farmer Wendy McGuire feeds her turkeys at her farm, Gallina del Sol, in Stanley, N.M. McGuire raises around 200 turkeys for slaughter each year. She also raises geese for Christmas and sold out of both by mid-September this year.
Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune
Tribune
Wendy McGuire uses the feathers from her heritage turkeys to make fans, hatpins and decorations. It's her feather creations that make her money, around $3,000 a year. The turkeys themselves don't earn much of a profit, she says.
Photo by Michael J. GallegosTribune
Tribune
Turkey farmer Wendy McGuire walks back to her 17-sided house to take a break after a morning of feeding and watering her turkeys in Stanley, N.M.
The industry
World: The United States is the No. 1 turkey consumer in the world. The typical American consumed 13.1 pounds of turkey meat in 2005.
Commercial: Minnesota is the No. 1 turkey-producing state in the United States. It expects to raise 46 million turkeys for Americans' consumption in 2007. Other top states: North Carolina (39 million turkeys), Arkansas (31 million), Virginia (21.5 million), Missouri (21 million) and California (16.8 million).
Organic: 144,086 certified organic turkeys were on the nation's farmlands in 2005. Most of these turkeys were in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Commercial sales: $3.86 billion in receipts is expected from turkey sales this year. A commercial turkey averaged around 99 cents a pound in December 2006.
Organic sales: Organic turkey farmer Wendy McGuire says costs peak around $100 a week in the fall to care for her 200 turkeys. She sells them for $3.40 a pound. Other New Mexico farmers sells turkeys for around $3 a pound.
Sources: National Turkey Federation, U.S. Census Bureau
More Local Business
- Mineral leases concern residents in eastern New Mexico
- PNM: Power Saver plan would reduce electricity use in peak demand cycle
- Air-bag waiver brings Tesla car plant one step closer to Albuquerque
MOST RECENT TRIB STORIES
-
ABQTrib.com to remain available
08:48 a.m., February 25, 2008 -
Congressman is indicted
08:37 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Series of attacks target Green Zone
08:36 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Iran is defying U.N., agency says
08:35 a.m., February 23, 2008 -
Waterboarding approval probed
08:34 a.m., February 23, 2008
TRIB IN THE BLOGOSPHERE*
- Ty Murray Invitational thrills fans in Albuquerque
- Is Rome Burning?
- Ominous Skies
- The Road to Invalidation
- Albuquerque company participates in “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”
*Note: The Tribune does not create and is not responsible for the blogosphere's headlines and stories. These links to blogs talking about ABQTrib.com are automatically generated. Use them at your own risk.
STORY TOOLS
SHARE THIS STORY [?]
STANLEY, N.M. — Nothing but blue sky and huge expanses of flat pastureland surround Wendy McGuire's 17-sided home, about 45 miles northeast of Albuquerque.
Well - except for one duck, two peafowl, two silver pheasants, 10 golden pheasants, 20 guineas, 22 geese, 40 chickens, 40 pigeons - and 200 turkeys.
Every year for the past seven years, McGuire, 59, has been raising her turkeys on just a small portion of her 25 acres. It is beautifully rugged open land that she named Gallina Del Sol.
"We'll never be putting our footprint on anything more than about five (acres) max," McGuire said. "We're leaving the rest fallow - leaving it alone and letting it grow wild."
This appreciation for Mother Nature serves McGuire well in the way she raises and cares for her birds, naturally and organically, from the egg to the slaughter.
Hers is a small operation - she'll supply turkeys to only a few hundred New Mexicans for Thanksgiving this week.
But small doesn't mean lack of quality, McGuire says. In fact, the state's turkey farmers offer a unique product that commercial operations just don't have. And they have a market for it.
Not like the `big boys'
McGuire, a native of Los Alamos, keeps 40 turkeys year-round as a breeder flock. The males are called toms or stags. The females are called hens.
Her turkeys are kept with chickens, so they lay their eggs year-round. However, the eggs, larger than chicken eggs, are hatched only from April through September. The rest of the year, the eggs are eaten and are "even tastier" than chicken eggs, McGuire says.
In one year, McGuire sells around 200 birds as babies, called poults, or as pets, for breeding purposes or Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners. She also raises geese for Christmas dinners.
She feeds her birds fruits and vegetables from the orchard and garden she and her roommate maintain. The birds also eat grass, hay and alfalfa.
McGuire's flock consists of a wide-range of heritage turkey breeds, including Rio Grande, Bourbon Red, Calico, Spanish Black and McGuire's own, pale desert-colored birds called Pablos Del Sol, just to name a few.
Heritage birds are elegantly colored, wilder breeds than the white, broad-breasted turkeys raised for commercial production.
McGuire said she learned the trade from doing a lot of reading and talking to people who know about turkeys, such as David Rigsby, owner of Embudo Valley Organics.
Rigsby's primary business is organic feed, which he raises on 24 irrigated acres of his 200-acre land halfway between Taos and Espanola.
However, Rigsby also happens to have the biggest turkey operation in New Mexico, raising and processing 2,000 broad-breasted turkeys every year.
"We're tiny. We're very small compared to the big boys," Rigsby said. "Somebody growing for Butterball, for example, might have 2 million."
This year, it is estimated 175 million turkeys will be raised for killing by commercial operations in the top six producing states, according to the Census Bureau.
Rigsby said he chooses to raise the white, broad-breasted turkeys because that is what the stores demand.
"People in the stores want to see white stuff," Rigsby said. "They don't know what to do with a dark-skinned turkey (like the heritage breeds) because broad-breasted turkeys have been the industry standard for so long."
Rigsby said he sells his turkeys only to small, family-owned grocery stores because the large ones are "too impersonal." His turkeys sell for around $3 a pound.
McGuire gets all her business through word of mouth and takes orders in advance. She sold out of her turkeys and geese by mid-September.
McGuire delivers her turkeys to buyers at designated meeting places in Albuquerque or its surrounding areas. McGuire's turkeys run about $3.40 a pound.
However, McGuire doesn't make a profit off the sales of her birds, she said. She uses their feathers to create fans, hatpins and decorations. The feather crafts earn her around $3,000 a year.
Rigsby said he too doesn't make a whole lot of money from his turkey farm.
"It is three times as expensive to raise organic animals," he said. "I probably eke out about $30,000 a year total, but that's mostly from the grain. Turkeys are a showpiece in a way. I probably don't make anything from it."
The hard but necessary part
McGuire and Rigsby each slaughter their own turkeys by hand.
"People frequently say, `I couldn't kill something I raised, they're too cute,'" McGuire said. "But if you raised it, know how it lived, what you provided for it and what its life was like," it makes the killing process easier.
When McGuire catches the turkey she has designated for slaughter, she pets and soothes it. Then, she hangs it upside down because this causes the bird to relax and go into a sort of sleep mode.
At this point, McGuire is careful to tell the turkey that it has been a good bird and thanks it. Quietly and swiftly, McGuire puts a knife into the brain. This causes the bird to lose consciousness quickly because of the rapid loss of blood.
"I don't want them fearful or struggling," McGuire said. "I don't want them to feel anything. I just want them to kind of wake up somewhere far away and think, `Oh, how about that, I'm dead.'"
Rigsby's method differs slightly in that he cuts the neck, but his feelings about the process are the same.
"I'm talking to them emotionally as well as physically," Rigsby said. "I thank them. I ask them to go to sleep and then I do something with my eyes. I shut them. I'm looking at them, and I focus far."
McGuire and Rigsby said that if done correctly, the bird will not jerk or kick and that it will not hurt because it is done so quickly.
So why raise turkeys if you're not making much of a profit?
For lots of reasons, McGuire and Rigsby said.
First and foremost, they say they're just old-fashioned farmers with a love of the land running through their veins.
"I raise animals for the love of life," Rigsby said. "But I think if you raise animals, you've got to do something for them. How an animal dies is very important, but how they lived is even more important."
McGuire said she loves making a living off the land.
"What I do have is a meat supply and the feathers, and I am helping to preserve the old heritage breeds and make them popular again," McGuire said.
McGuire said she'd like to see the number of organic turkey farmers grow from about a few hundred now to several thousand.
"Anybody can do it," McGuire said. "Now I am considered to be the `turkey lady,' " McGuire said. "There's no reason people can't be educated on what they're raising and what they're eating."
