Raising Thanksgiving turkeys can be a complicated process

TURKEYS at Bow­man and
Lan­des in New Carlisle are herded by work­ers. TDN Photo/STEPHANI DUFF

Ris­ing grain prices pose challenge

By Stephani Duff

editorial@tdnpublishing.com

NEW CARLISLE–Second gen­er­a­tion own­er­ship and inno­v­a­tive tech­niques allow Bow­man and Lan­des to offer cus­tomers the best in poul­try prod­ucts for not just Thanks­giv­ing Day, but every day.

Carl Bow­man, sec­ond gen­er­a­tion co-owner of Bow­man Lan­des, explained the process of get­ting a turkey ready for Thanks­giv­ing dinner.

“We get them as a one day old poult, which gives us the oppor­tu­nity to take the time to get them barn ready; that requires that we keep them in small bunches under heat lamps to keep them from smoth­er­ing each other and near the heat. This process is quite labor inten­sive and then they will be in the barn for seven weeks,” Bow­man explained. “Once they reach seven weeks we let them out doors to free range; they have to be seven weeks to with­stand the weather and are strong enough to fight off small ani­mal predators.”

Bow­man said they start out each year with approx­i­mately 70,000 turkeys with some dying from nat­ural causes or from preda­tors; they run this large oper­a­tion with one shift of peo­ple in charge of pro­duc­tion of turkey and grow­ing of grains of around 2,700 acres of corn, soy beans and wheat. Bow­man Lan­des has around 30 employ­ees year round and sea­son­ally, in Novem­ber and Decem­ber, get up to around 170 employ­ees for har­vest­ing. Although Bow­man and Lan­des is largely known for their pro­duc­tion of Thanks­giv­ing Day turkeys they also grow turkeys for pro­cess­ing, such as breasts and roasts, and whole turkeys for their small, in house meat market.

Bow­man said the major­ity of their mar­ket­ing is done directly with a small amount of direct store delivery.

“We also have small dis­trib­u­tors in Indi­ana and Delaware who have con­nec­tions with health food stores on the East Coast and co-ops, but our pri­mary mar­ket­ing is in Ohio and south­ern Indi­ana,” Bow­man said.

Bow­man and Lan­des’ claim to fame is that their turkeys are raised free range and on a diet that is antibi­otic free, but the real sell­ing point is that there is no ani­mal by-product in the feed that the turkeys receive.

“We give them a mix­ture of corn, soy meal, vit­a­mins, min­er­als, micro nutri­ents and veg­etable oil ver­sus ani­mal fat,” explained Bow­man. “Our turkeys are con­di­tioned to be the best Thanks­giv­ing Day turkeys because of how we grow them, exer­cise them, and because we don’t use growth pro­motants; they eat more because they are more active and burn­ing more calories.”

CARL BOWMAN inspects
part of his flock of turkeys. TDN Photo/STEPHANI DUFF

Accord­ing to Bow­man the biggest obsta­cle they are fac­ing in the poul­try indus­try right now is the price of grain and soy hav­ing almost dou­bled, but the con­so­la­tion to that is that in stores all pro­teins and veg­eta­bles are ris­ing in cost, as well. Dis­ease pre­ven­tion also is some­thing that Bow­man Lan­des is seri­ous about, so they must be care­ful about who is around the turkeys as well as giv­ing them pro-biotics, using acids and enzymes.

As Bow­man Lan­des raises their turkeys in a free range, antibi­otic free envi­ron­ment, they are find­ing that they are meet­ing con­sumer expectations.

“Free range and antibi­otic free ani­mal rais­ing is very en vogue right now and that makes it eas­ier to meet the expec­ta­tions of our con­sumers,” Bow­man said. “Peo­ple have come to expect that turkey is a health­ier option for eat­ing lean ver­sus red meat so we meet those expec­ta­tions by pro­vid­ing dif­fer­ent turkey prod­ucts other than whole turkeys; we have turkey pas­trami, turkey ham, smoked turkey, and mesquite turkey, as well as turkey filets, turkey mignon (a turkey breast with turkey bacon around it) and turkey cube steaks.”

Bow­man has noticed that the trend of hos­pi­tals and col­leges want­ing turkeys is on the rise; “Bet­ter pro­teins and buy­ing local seem to be an increased inter­est and we are com­ing to find that our turkeys are no longer just for Thanks­giv­ing and Christ­mas din­ner tables.”

Carl Bow­man is co-owner of Bow­man Lan­des with his sis­ter, Anita, and two other part­ners, Stan and Steve Lan­des; all four co-owners are sec­ond gen­er­a­tion and they have younger gen­er­a­tions work­ing at the com­pany full time now, too. For more infor­ma­tion on pro­duc­tion, pric­ing, his­tory and how to order your Thanks­giv­ing or Christ­mas turkey, visit bowmanlandes.com.

Posted by Rachel Lloyd on Nov 13 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.