This is how your Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners first arrive at the farm. Yes, that box hold 50 day-old turkey poults (that's what they call babies) hatched and shipped yesterday. Birds can survive without food and water up to three days after hatching because they are still drawing nutrition from their yolk so many birds are shipped through the regular old US Postal Service.
When the poults arrive, we take them out of the box one by one and dip their beaks in the water so they know where to drink. They will be kept in a brooder for a few weeks until they are big enough to go outside into a portable pen on pasture.
Veal Calves
A pair of Jersey bull calves arrived this week, too. They will be raised in an open, non-confined area prior to being turned out on pasture. Some people won't eat veal because they are opposed to modern commercial veal-raising practices. However, our calves are allowed to run free in the barnyard together and are not pumped full of any antibiotics & hormones.
I had no idea baby turkeys came from such pre-fab origins.
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