Broerman Turkey Farm: 1,200 turkeys in a single week

By Penny Smith

knoxcitizen@ohcommedia.com

The Broer­man fam­ily has been grow­ing and pro­cess­ing turkeys for our local Thanks­giv­ing din­ners since 1991. The state inspected farm is located at 11729 Leedy Road, on the north side of Fredericktown.

The turkey farm is cur­rently oper­ated by Cheyl Broer­man and her chil­dren, son, Mike, and daugh­ters, Sarah (Julius) Hul­bert, and Jenifer (Tren­ton) Wine. Sadly, the head of the fam­ily, Julius Broer­man passed away this past January.

Besides hor­mone, cage, and antibi­otic free turkeys the Broerman’s also raise corn and soy­beans on their 800 acre farm.

This year, the fam­ily and many extra hands will process 1,200 turkeys the week prior to Thanksgiving.

Fresh turkeys can be ordered from Broer­man Turkey Farm by call­ing (419) 886‑2141, by e-mail at broermanturkeyfarm@gmail.com or check them out on Face­book — Broer­man Farms. Turkeys are typ­i­cally picked up on the Tues­day and Wednes­day before Thanksgiving.

Most of the Broer­man turkeys will weigh between 15 and 22 pounds with a few smaller and larger birds avail­able on a first come first served basis.

Unsold turkeys are frozen and a vari­ety of other turkey prod­ucts are made avail­able year round. They include smoked turkey breasts, ground turkey, sum­mer sausage, mar­i­nated turkey, and turkey jerky. Gift bas­kets are avail­able for Christ­mas or other occasions.

Turkeys are native to North Amer­ica and about 5.6 mil­lions tons of turkey meat is pro­duced each year. Of this, more than 60 per­cent is pro­duced in North America.

Although domes­ti­cated over 500 years ago, it was only dur­ing the 20th cen­tury that turkeys were exploited for their meat. Prior to this, turkeys were selected for their plumage and exhib­ited in poul­try shows.

The female (hen) is smaller than the male (tom or stag), and gen­er­ally less col­or­ful. They have wingspans of almost 6 feet. The lifes­pan for a turkey is 10 years. Pure breed turkeys take about 4–5 months to grow to full size. The hen turkey takes 16 weeks to mature com­pletely, and aver­ages 8 to 16 pounds in weight. The tom turkey takes about 19 weeks and weighs any­where from 16 and 24 pounds. Larger tom turkeys can weigh up to 40 pounds. A breeder tom turkey can gen­er­ate up to 1,500 poults (chicks) in a hen’s six-month lay­ing cycle.

Com­mer­cial turkey breed­ing hens pro­duce about 45 live poults each year. Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch.

Turkeys are fed a mix­ture of corn, wheat and soy­beans that are ground up to look like gra­nola. The birds grow quickly so farm­ers spend a lot of time adjust­ing feed­ing rations to match the growth stages of the birds to reach the required mar­ket weight. Water is always pro­vided through­out the barns so they may drink freely.

Broil­ers and hens are used for the whole bird mar­ket. Toms and heavy toms are for the fur­ther processed mar­ket and some are sold as whole birds.

So for the fresh­est Thanks­giv­ing turkey you have ever had on your din­ner table, give the Broer­man fam­ily a call to reserve your fresh juicy turkey.

Penny Smith is the edi­tor of the Knox County Cit­i­zen. She can be reached at (740) 848‑4032 or by e-mail at knoxcitizen@ohcommedia.com.

Posted by Rob Treynor on Nov 1 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.