Gobblers’ Holiday : Rancher Says His Turkeys Live in a Poultry Paradise--but Not for Long

Gary Lee, owner of Ventura County’s only turkey ranch, says he provides a “short holiday in paradise” for the more than 58,000 birds raised at his mountain farm each year.

“Turkeys live for the moment,” says Lee, 45.

As well they might, when the raison d’etre of their 14- to 16-week life span is as a Thanksgiving Day entree complemented by cranberry sauce and corn bread stuffing.

The cycle has repeated itself with the regularity of the holidays on the 75-acre ranch, which is seven miles south of the Kern County line in the Lockwood Valley. It all began in 1919 when Lee’s grandfather, a World War I flying ace, raised his first poults.

There are few surprises for either turkey or farmer, which is just the way Lee likes it in a mathematically precise business with razor-thin profit margins. When you’ve got almost $500,000 worth of birds you don’t want them stressed out.

Year in, year out, Lee is contracted to raise nearly 400,000 turkeys, two flocks a year in Ventura County, four others at a second Lee Ranch his brother operates near Fresno. The turkeys’ owner is privately held Zacky Farms, the state’s second-largest poultry company, which relies on Lee for about 5% of its annual production, said Duane Herrick, Zacky’s assistant general manager.

A day after they are born, the first of the broad-breasted birds start arriving at Lee Ranch from a Fresno hatchery at the rate of 20,000 at day, 100 to a box. This begins in July.

They are placed in 95-degree brooder pens in one of four 350-foot-long houses for the first five to six weeks of their metronomic life to protect them from the vagaries of a California spring at the ranch’s 5,500-foot altitude.

After that, it’s outdoors to one of nine pens where the young turkeys soon learn to retrieve a grain-based mixture of pellets and mash from 450-foot long feed lines.

The hens cluck in alarm--only toms actually gobble--when an unfamiliar visitor approaches, yet gather by the fence for a closer look.

“They’re real gregarious,” Lee said. “If you get one coming this way, the whole lot will follow them.”

The birds from Lee’s farm are among the 22.5 million turkeys produced annually in California. Lee said he looks forward to the holidays as much as anyone.

“It’s not what you call a likable animal,” Lee said. “I try not to think about a live turkey when I’m eating my Thanksgiving dinner.”