There is something special about the turkeys in Bolinas. With a perpetual twinkle in his eye, Bill Niman is well aware that his ranch is producing some of the finest Thanksgiving turkey available. Only 15 years ago heritage turkey breeds were declared by the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy to be in danger of extinction. Their breeding population had fallen to under a thousand. (For perspective, over 200 million turkeys were raised in the US last year.)
Thus the story of the Nimans’ roadtrip to Kansas in 2007 to pick up poults (newly-hatched turkeys) has become the stuff of legend, and the experience is familiar to many people who work to preserve endangered species – domestic and wild. While chicks of more common poultry breeds are often shipped through the US Mail, Bill and Nicolette were taking no chances. “We drove 32 hours without stopping, from [turkey breeder] Frank Reese’s place in Lindsborg, Kansas, to Bolinas, California. The poults were in the back of the car in cardboard boxes. It was a marathon, but this was the only way to be completely sure they made it safely back to California.” Reese is one of a handful of heritage turkey breeders in America, and he was chosen according to the same high standards the Nimans used to develop partnerships with folks around California who bring turkeys from incubation to slaughter. Raising these birds is an impressively collaborative process, mostly because it takes a great amount of time to raise each bird, and involves substantial risks in the stages of hatching, growing, and processing the turkeys.
The birds that were whisked back from Kansas would be the start of the breeding flock, and many of them remain on the Bolinas ranch today. Two buildings were modified specifically to house the turkeys – letting the birds out to pasture during the day and locking them up against predators at dark. Feeding them only inside the barn ensures their return each night. Unlike chickens, these birds don’t have an instinct to consistently roost at home; with all of their needs met they are just as likely to fly over the fence and go wild. Breeding is quite an unstructured process, and as the handful of toms strut around in the grass with full, grand plumage and more numerous and far-plainer hens offer a steady stream of “yelps”, this turkey operation feels for a minute more like an open-range cattle ranch than a highly structured poultry operation.
Nevertheless, there is a plan – albeit shaped substantially by natural cycles. “We let our turkeys breed and lay eggs in the same way they would in nature. We could easily put them under lights to keep them laying year-round, but this puts significant stress on a bird – and would mean they’d have to be inside more,” explains Bill as he opens the gate on the turkey house on a cool September morning. “Without our help, each hen lays about 50 eggs every year, which is asking enough of them.”
Fertilized eggs are collected five times daily and delivered bi-weekly to a hatchery in Linden, California – where they’re put in an incubator and timed to hatch with remarkable precision. The transition from the unstructured breeding operation of Bolinas to the carefully timed hatching is needed to keep a steady supply of turkeys coming in for the sudden surge in demand at Thanksgiving. Bill marvels at how effectively biology can be scheduled at this stage. “Cell division won’t start until the eggs are at proper temperature in the incubator. So we can collect eggs for two weeks straight, keep them cool, then bring a batch to the hatchery. With this kind of timing, every batch of eggs will hatch on the same day and poults will begin growing all together, so that at the end of the process, we can offer a consistent range of bird weights for Thanksgiving dinner.”
For all of this diligent work, the proof is in tasting these birds! You can pre-order your Thanksgiving turkey right now at www.marinsunfarms.com/retail/.
