http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/22/dining/22turkey.html
November 22, 2007
In Some Households, Every Day Is Turkey Day
By KIM SEVERSON
"It is one thing for the president of the United States to pardon a pair of
turkeys every year and then send them off to live out their days in Florida.
It's quite another to save a turkey from the Thanksgiving table by inviting
it to live with you.
Two weeks ago, Karen Oeh and her husband, Mike Balistreri, who live not far
from Santa Cruz, Calif., adopted two turkeys that had been rescued after an
airline shipping misfortune in Las Vegas.
"I am like a new parent," said Ms. Oeh, 39. "I instantly, totally fell in
love, and now I just want to stay home with them."
Ms. Oeh and Mr. Balistreri will not be among the 92 percent of Americans who
will eat turkey today, as estimated by the National Turkey Federation, a
trade group. Instead, they have given the birds a softer, easier path that
bypasses the oven and leads to the backyard.
"It makes me feel better about Thanksgiving, which is already a depressing
day for me," said Ms. Oeh, a college adviser, archaeology teacher and
vegetarian who will enjoy meatless lasagna today.
Adopting turkeys, which can weigh more than 40 pounds and have a penchant
for pecking, is not like adopting a kitten or a puppy. Although some owners
report that their turkeys are sweet and like to be petted, the birds can try
even the most dedicated animal lover's patience. For instance, they molt.
And then there are the abundant droppings.
"They are not the neatest of birds," said Marcia Lane, 75, a former
television actress who adopted her first turkey in 2004. She currently keeps
three in a fenced-in piece of pasture behind her home in Columbus, Miss.
In the beginning, Ms. Lane's turkeys seemed friendly enough. She named them
for characters from "The Mikado." She would even sing Gilbert and Sullivan
tunes to them. But turkeys, like some children, can be fickle.
"All of the sudden one, for no reason, they will turn on you and decide they
don't like you anymore and peck you," she said. "I had one that would just
fly at you, and I would have to carry a rake to protect myself."
An organization called Farm Sanctuary delivered the turkeys to Ms. Lane and
Ms. Oeh. The group, dedicated to scooping up commercial farm animals raised
in dirty, crowded conditions, began placing turkeys in friendly homes soon
after its founding, in 1986. A growing number of other animal rights groups
are now in the adoption business as well.
This holiday season, Farm Sanctuary, which tends to its animals on land in
upstate New York and Northern California and has a $5.7 million budget, has
38 turkeys waiting to be adopted, said Tricia Barry, the sanctuary's
communications director.
From 25 to 50 turkeys a year are placed with adoptive families, said Lorri
Bauston, who helped start Farm Sanctuary and now runs her own farm shelter
called Animal Acres, a 45-minute drive from downtown Hollywood.
Ms. Bauston has five grown turkeys at the moment. Representative Dennis J.
Kucinich, the Democratic presidential candidate and vegan, showed up last
week and fed them stuffed squash, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Ms. Bauston's
birds are all too old for adoption, but when she gets a suitable one, it
will go to the actress Daryl Hannah, who is making her property in Malibu
poultry-ready.
Not just anyone can adopt a turkey. There are site visits and income
reviews. Sheds must be built, and veterinarians secured. And then there is
the deal-breaker: the family must be vegetarian.
Most of the 30 farm-animal shelters that have popped up in recent years get
turkeys from law enforcement agencies, from animal welfare societies and
from ranchers or processors with sick or injured birds. Some just show up
under the cover of night, their origins unknown. Not all of them place their
birds for adoption.
The turkeys adopted by the couple near Santa Cruz came from a Northwest
plane that was carrying several thousand baby turkeys, called poults, from a
breeder in Canada to a rancher in California this July. The plane was
delayed for hours in Las Vegas. Many poults died, whether of the heat or
suffocation, but some were saved by animal rights activists.
For May and Flower, the two turkeys that received a presidential pardon
Tuesday, the adoption rules are less strict and the circumstances more
glamorous.
The custom of presenting turkeys to the White House is 60 years old,
developed as a promotional tool by poultry producers including the National
Turkey Federation during the Truman administration. But the formal pardoning
program began with the first President Bush in 1989.
Until two years ago, the pardoned turkeys would be sent to Kidwell Farm, a
reproduction of a 1930s working farm at Frying Pan Park in Herndon, Va. But
in 2005 the Walt Disney Company, sensing an opportunity, offered to take the
birds. This year, the two national turkeys - there is always a star and an
understudy - spent a night in a Hotel Washington suite (in their kennels, of
course), got their pardon and were flown first-class to Walt Disney World in
Florida, where they will star as grand marshals in the park's Thanksgiving
Day parade. They will then reside in a live-animal exhibit.
Whether the turkeys come from a shelter or the White House, they don't live
very long. Most adopted turkeys are commercially bred broad-breasted whites,
genetically disposed to grow to a marketable size in about four months. Even
on a diet of only a couple of cups of turkey feed a day, they become obese.
They usually develop leg problems, congestive heart failure and arthritis.
"One just couldn't get up, so I had to have her euthanized," Ms. Lane said.
"Another one just dropped dead one evening."
One of the birds pardoned by President Bush last year, Fryer, died this
month at Disneyland in California. At the Virginia farm, one pardoned turkey
died a day after it arrived, said Judy Pedersen, a public information
officer who works for the Fairfax County Park Authority.
"I believe it was one of Clinton's birds," she said.
Only Biscuits, one half of the pardoned 2004 duo of Biscuits and Gravy, is
still alive, and she's not doing well enough to be shown to the public, Ms.
Pedersen said.
The presidential birds don't get a big send-off when they die, despite the
fanfare accorded them in life.
"They are disposed of," said Sherrie Rosenblatt, vice president of the
National Turkey Federation.
The passing of other adopted turkeys is marked more somberly. Anne Shroeder
runs the small Star Gazing Farm in Montgomery County, Md. Like other
shelters, it is dedicated to keeping animals out of the hands of omnivores.
A month ago, a turkey of hers named Mr. Bill died for reasons even a
necropsy hasn't been able to parse out. So Ms. Shroeder held a little
funeral. She displayed his photograph, and someone read a couple of poems.
The memory of Mr. Bill, plus caring for her remaining turkey, makes it a
little easier to endure the holiday.
"Before I had turkeys, Thanksgiving bothered me but I could get past it,"
she said. "Now, it's literally painful to have to go to a Thanksgiving
dinner."
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