Home
THE STORY of THE TURKEY FARM


In 2007, The Turkey Farm enters its 22nd year.

Owners Marilyn and Bob Neal and farm manager Elaine Stevens have built this into Maine’s largest Turkey farm. Every year, we add customers, and at Thanksgiving as many as 80 percent of our customers return from the previous year. We believe they come back because of the taste and texture of our Turkeys.

We get that taste and texture by raising and processing our birds differently from those of other farmers. Starting with the commitment to free ranging our birds, we stay as natural as we can. We do not feed our birds any antibiotics routinely, although we will use whatever medications seem necessary when birds are sick or are clearly threatened by a virulent disease. We do not feed hormones. We have not had to use any antibiotics since 2004. (Hormones are illegal for use on poultry in this country. Conventional growers use growth-promoting antibiotics instead, so there has never been any clamor for hormones among the huge poultry companies.)

At slaughter, we add no chemical “flavor enhancers” to the meat. We don’t have to. Conventional Turkeys may contain up to 7.5 percent (1 ½ pounds in a 20-pound bird) of a chemical broth intended to add flavor.

The farm has more than seven acres of fenced range, and it rotates ranges so that no range is occupied by Turkeys for more than 30 months in 60. For parts of every season, each range lies fallow so the perennial grasses and other growth can rejuvenate themselves after Turkeys have been on the range. We try to populate the ranges at a density of no more than 400 adult Turkeys per acre, a little more than 100 square feet per bird.

The litter from the farm’s brooderhouse, where Turkeys spend their first few weeks until their feathers have grown in enough to insulate them from the weather, is composted and spread on the family’s garden and sold to other gardeners.

The Turkey Farm had its beginnings in 1980 when Marilyn and Bob Neal came to New Sharon, hoping to make their living from the land. Bob had had a 20-year career in newspapers and for the first three years in Maine, he farmed and taught journalism at the University of Maine. Marilyn and Bob have two sons, Robbie, who was 8 when the family moved here, and Chris, who was 4. Both still live in Maine, although neither wants to assume operation of the farm when the parents get done. Marilyn worked in records-keeping in the home-health industry for 13 years before joining the farm crew full-time in 2002.

As subsistence farmers, the Neals grew a little of everything, including a full line of vegetables, most of which they sold at farmers’ markets in Farmington and Skowhegan, and poultry and pork. But subsistence farming is a difficult choice both for the wallet and the lifestyle – “Do you know how many radishes you have to pull to make a living?” Bob asked fellow back-to-the-landers. After six years of augmenting farm income by working out, Bob reduced the outside workload to part-time and began to concentrate on Turkeys. In 1986, he and Marilyn started 100 Turkeys, 91 making it to market weight and all sold at the farm for Thanksgiving and Christmas. The Turkey Farm was on its way.

The next year, they grew 300 Turkeys and the next, 800. In 1989, they raised the bar too high and raised 2,200, distributing a great many to stores at wholesale prices that turned out to be way too low, and the farm lost $15,000 (nearly $7 a bird). “Wow,” one farmer said, “I thought you had to raise sheep to lose that much money per animal.”

The farm cut back to 1,400 birds the next year and then resumed gradual growth until it peaked in 1994 at 4,200. The total flock fluctuated between 3,300 and 4,100 for 11 seasons – this year it will be about 3,000 – although there are never more than 2,879 birds on the place at one time.

In 1987, the farm started its food concession, which is perhaps where most people have learned about us. This will be the farm’s 18th year at the Fryeburg Fair, where it won the prize in 1998 for best food. We tried more than a dozen fairs and festivals before settling on Fryeburg as the one major show for our food concession.

In 1989, The Turkey Farm began selling what are called further-processed items to stores, primarily natural food and always locally owned stores The further-processed items (see list) gradually became a major part of the business, and keep the farm in production year-roun.

A year later, we followed the lead of Jill Agnew of Willow Pond Farm in Sabattus and became the second farm in Maine to offer Community Supported Agriculture (see related page) to its customers. Under Community Supported Agriculture, sharers pay up-front for their food and then collect (with interest) as the harvest comes in. CSA has become a key part of our year-round operation and has significantly increased traffic to our farmstore.

That farmstore on Route 27 in New Sharon began as just the front room of our slaughterhouse, which was built in 1990. The carpenters were finishing in the front room as we began processing Thanksgiving Turkeys in the back room that year. Two years later, using a loan from Coastal Enterprises, Inc., we built a 1,008-square-foot brooderhouse where our birds begin their lives. The house is heated with propane stoves that keep the young Turkeys, which we pick up at hatcheries the day they hatch, warm until their feathers grow in.

Two years later, we added to the slaughterhouse so we’d have more room for processing, and three years after that, we build a 576-square-foot ell onto the plant to be our farmstore.

Our most identifiable symbol came to us in 1998 when our son Robbie painted a mural that we display in our farmstore and at the Fryeburg Fair. From that mural, we took the image of The Versatile Turkey, a Tom Turkey who balances on a rolling ball while juggling plates, rings and ten-pins, and made it our farm logo. Robbie draws all the artwork for our publications.

We knew we needed more refrigeration, and in 1999 we bought a refrigerator truck, which we could use for deliveries and for stationary storage at the Fryeburg Fair and at the farm. Three years later, we bought a second reefer truck, which we use at Fryeburg and for cold storage at the farm at Thanksgiving. A third reefer truck joined our fleet in 2006,

In 2001, The Turkey Farm took a huge step when it converted to feed that is certified to be free of genetically engineered grains. To our knowledge, no other farm in New England has taken this step.

Using genetically clean feed is in keeping with our philosophy of walking lightly on the land. We believe that genetic engineering works more to the advantage of the corporations that own the seed patents than to the animals and people who eat the food. And, so far, the yields with genetically engineered seed don’t surpass the yields of conventional seed. We also fear that not enough is known about such effects as drifting for genetically engineered feed to be assuredly safe. The price of genetically clean feed is about 13 percent higher than conventional feed, but this year all feed has increased greatly in price, by as much as $80 a ton. We use about 170 tons a year, so the added cost is huge for us and has already led to one price increase in 2007 and may lead to another.

For the future, we will continue to emphasize our retail sales, here at the farm and at the farmers’ market in Brunswick. The business will continue to revolve around the Fryeburg Fair, Thanksgiving, our farmstore, which is open year -round, the farmers’ market and our wholesale accounts.