From the gobble to the grocery: Local farmers raise turkeys humanely year-round

It’s a late night on Asgard Farm.

In the dark, turkeys roost in the fields and Allison Aday, owner of the multi-species sustainable farm in Gibsonville, enters the pasture.

“We generally go out in the evening,” Aday said. “They don’t run away because it’s too dark to see anything.”

Each turkey is snatched from the fields and placed in cages overnight, fasted off of food.

At the farm’s processing station the next day, the turkeys are taken out one by one and placed in a restraint cone — still covered so they won’t panic.

“We cut their turkey throats,” Aday said. “It’s the most humane way to do it. They are unconscious within seconds. I don’t want their last day to be horrible and stressful.”

The turkeys, each a pure heritage breed, are then plucked and packaged, ready to be picked up by customers and placed on a Thanksgiving Day table.

“Being a small farm, I generally do about 50 turkeys a year,” Aday said. “I take orders in May and we’re usually sold out by June.”

The turkey has become the most popular Thanksgiving staple, but John Pike, director of operations at Goldsboro Milling Company, said the business is not just a once-a-year ordeal.

“Turkey is a year-round business,” Pike said. “They’re not just being raised as whole birds (for the holidays), but for cut-up for deli meats too.”

Virnece Beaman, former owner of Circle B Turkey Farm in Dudley, said turkey farmers work from morning to night around the year to raise the holiday dish.

“It’s not really any different during Thanksgiving or Christmas,” said Beaman, who co-owned the farm with her husband for 22 years before selling it in December 2009.

“A turkey farmer has to go down (to the houses) early every morning to make sure everything is working right,” she said. “About two or three times a week, they go in with a tractor and tiller and till the inside of the houses to keep the shavings from being messed up.”

Beaman said the farm received three flocks of five-week-old turkeys a year — about 6,500 turkeys at a time in three individual houses — and raised them until they were 20 weeks old.

“We grew super Tom turkeys, which are big birds,” she said. “When our birds went out, they were 30 pounds.”
Grocery stores usually offer a wide selection of turkeys, said Jennifer Fresquez, marketing team leader at the Whole Foods Market in Cary, from organic and natural free-range to frozen turkeys.

“The average turkey, a free-range that’s never been frozen, is about $2.29 a pound,” she said. “We get those from Pennsylvania.”

Fresquez said Whole Foods usually receives more than 1,000 turkey shipments and starts taking orders before Halloween.

“We usually don’t have anything left,” she said. “We sell everything.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, also known as PETA, lists several turkey-friendly alternatives on its website, including a Tofurky roast and vegetarian stuffing.

Contact the City Editor at citydesk@unc.edu