Chicama Run Family Farm

Most people don't understand the stress and frustration turkey season is for a small farmer.

First, we plan our what we are going to do sometime in December/January and we have to get the order of our baby turkeys in soon before they sell out.   Then they arrive in July (sometimes sooner if you use heritage breeds).

We have to plan on some dying as well.  But these birds are the funds to finish off our year and hopefully pay off a few bills (which they have accumulated since July).  I personally plan on a 10% loss because that makes it easier for me to think about it.  Some years we have less, some more.

We start selling the birds in September by taking reservations.  This might seem too far before Thanksgiving for most, but we need the birds sold and we need to have the knowledge they will ALL be sold.  I aim for them being all sold before November even hits.

Now, we butcher around 50-75 birds.  Notice, I say WE BUTCHER.  Not many farmers who do the number that we do will butcher them on the farm with only a few people.  We are a family run farm - currently we have 1 full time employee and that's it.

A full grown turkey can weight over 50lbs live weight.  That means catching and carrying a big strong turkey - and repeating this over and over all day long.  When we butcher chickens (yes, we butcher all our own chickens as well) we can do up to 40 in an hour with all of us working, but we can do 3-5 at a time.  Turkeys are 1 at a time because of their size so maybe 3-4 per hour.  It is not a fast process at all.

Some people look at it and say $6.99 per pound is expensive.  Heck, even when I see that number it is high in my mind..... until I do the work.

Day 1 is usually a happy day.  It's the first day and we know what to expect.  Day 2.... everyone is sore from Day 1 and tired.  The turkeys are fighting with us more (at least it feels like that) and we also know this is the LONG day as we will start in the morning and continue until we are done.  We usually get an hour or 2 break while we have to clean everything and set everything back up.  Remember, we might have an assembly line of some sort going - but it's nothing like a commercial operation.  We are personally looking over each and every bird one at a time.  If we need a Day 3... well let's just say we don't really want a Day 3 to show up in the schedule.

You would never believe where we have muscles!  Lifting turkeys like footballs and cleaning them out is more of a workout than you would imagine!

This is also why when we are asked if we have more turkeys, no we can't just add more to the schedule, no we can't predict the weight (which is why we have wide weight ranges), we are doing all the work here - on the farm and it just doesn't work that way.  It's also why we ask for a non-refundable deposit which is a small amount - I really don't need extra turkeys - it makes my life more difficult.

So please enjoy the turkey - a lot of work and caring goes into this process - and remember the labor behind it ;)