Raising turkeys can be complicated

By Stephani Duff

Civitas News Service

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.”

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.