On the Farm

The Fence that we were working on (that I wrote about a few weeks ago) is finished and is protecting the turkeys well. Our first sample weighing was performed last week. The weights of the toms came in just a tad heavier than I was expecting, but I think they will be ok. There are also plenty of females that should give us a nice distribution of finished weights. We will weigh again this week, and every week until processing time. To take our sample weights, we drive the tractor into the pasture and lift the bucket overhead. We attach a small scale to the bucket and proceed to catch birds one at a time, gently. Each caught bird is weighed and then released right back into the pasture. We collect weights from 10 males and 10 females. That information is monitored and analyzed (by me) to try to predict what the finished weight distribution will be, and to try to make sure the turkeys are not too big or too small. Getting all the weights to fall into that perfect Goldilocks zone has been a challenge sometimes, but after years of doing this, we have dialed in a pretty good system.