Tuesday, November 24, 2009

According to the Department of Agriculture, more than 45-million turkeys are eaten at Thanksgiving alone...most of them produced on commercial farms. But some Kansas farmers are focusing on "old school" birds, which are closer to the breed the first Pilgrims found when they came to the new worlds.

KAKE's Chris Frank traveled to the Good Shepherd Ranch about six miles west of Lindsborg in near Marquette to find out.

The turkeys at the ranch started shipping out for Thanksgiving about three weeks ago.

"This is the only animal that we have we can claim is the true American farm animal," Good Shepherd Farm's Frank Reese Jr. Said.

Reese and a handful of other farmers raise what they call heritage turkeys. They are trying to keep the birds pure.

"These are what turkeys looked like and were raised on every farm in American until about 1950," Reese said.

Reese says the mass produced turkeys most of us now buy are the result of very good genetic engineering designed to grow turkeys quickly to get to the market.

"They can get a 20 pound turkey now in 12 weeks," Reese said.

The turkeys at the Good Shepherd Farm take six to seven months to grow that size. Some of his notable customers include Martha Stewart, Emeril Lagasse and Willie Nelson.

"Also we have won every food tasting contest we have entered," Reese said.

Most of his turkeys ship out to the east coast to those willing to pay four to five times that of a typical butterball.