7,000 turkeys under one roof

So one time I met a turkey farmer. His name is James Roe, and he lives in Omaha, Ark., where the gently sloping hills and scattered maple trees make me want to run across the landscape and sing the theme from Roger and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music.”  I would have, except that in a town that averages 15 snows per winter, I spend most of my time inside with hot cocoa, as I stare out the window and think my life is a postcard.

When I first came to Omaha, I never dreamed I would find myself, along with my nephew Billy, walking with James Roe through a turkey house of 7,000 turkeys.

“We keep about 7,000 turkeys in our ranch houses and 20,000 in our burger houses,” Roe explained.

Roe begins each morning by walking through each of his turkey houses to see how his farm is holding up. On my visit, when I was standing in the doorway of one of the ranch houses, Roe said Billy and I were welcome to follow him through the turkeys. I couldn’t say no. It was a once -in a-lifetime opportunity.

“You need to be careful,” Roe said. “They flap their wings real fast, and if they hit you, it hurts real bad.”

Roe spread out his arms as he ventured into the hen house. Every few feet he gently flicked his wrists and the poultry ran in the opposite direction. As he walked, Roe created a path for Billy and me.

“If you look behind you,” Roe said when we were about halfway through the hen house, “They’ll be following you.”

Billy and I glanced behind us to find thousands of turkeys that stared at us with black, beady eyes and scurried toward our backsides. Feeling mildly terrified, I swallowed hard.

Billy clung to me tightly. His eyes grew large as he whispered, “I want to go home, Aunt Hannah.”

I confidently told Billy everything was fine, even though in my mind I was having visions of Godzilla-sized turkeys stomping on skyscrapers.

After we made our way to the end of the house and back, I was nearly hyper-ventilating. Billy looked at me and said with a mischievous grin, “That was fun, Aunt Hannah. Let’s do it again.”

After all was said and done, our clothes reeked of turkey, but it wasn’t so bad.
“Turkeys don’t stink near so much as chickens,” Roe assured us.

Roe maintains his farm by ensuring that the turkeys are under circumstances to grow into valuable poultry.

“Burger houses are just to keep the turkeys at a certain temperature, while they’re younger. We keep burger houses at about 92 degrees,” said Roe. “Turkeys start out at maybe a quarter of a pound then grow into about 30 pounds.”

We didn’t get to see any baby turkeys because it wasn’t the right time of year.

When asked if the baby turkeys were cute, Roe responded, “I don’t know what qualifies as cute for you. I’ve been looking at them since I was four or five years old … I just look at them and see a turkey. They’re not cute to me.”