Walters Hatchery: Raising a Future with Heirloom Turkeys
by Deborah S. Wechsler 

Mike Walters
Walters Hatchery
Rt 3 Box 1409
Stilwell, OK. 74960
Website: www.historicalturkeys.com 

Mike Walters is well on the way to turning a childhood interest in heirloom turkeys into a thriving mail-order business selling both young birds, or poults, and ready-to-cook meat. Walters Hatchery is one of only two producers of heirloom turkeys in the country who raise the birds from egg to table under their own USDA label.

Mike saw his first heirloom turkeys in someone’s yard when he was on a fishing trip with his grandfather. By age 16, he was going to poultry swaps, and by age 18, he had his own birds, a few of the beautifully colored Royal Palm turkeys. As he sold their offspring, he invested his profits into acquiring turkeys of other breeds as well. In 1995 Walters Hatchery received certified hatchery status from the state of Oklahoma. By 1998, Mike was also selling a hundred meat birds locally, processing them on-farm, and by 2002, he was up to about 500, starting to work with a USDA-approved processor, and building up a mail-order business. Though he works full-time off-farm as an ambulance medic, his job schedule allows him to devote several full days a week to developing the turkey farm. His mother and grandmother are responsible for brooding the chicks, and Mike and his father feed and care for the flocks.

All the turkeys are heirloom varieties, and Mike never loses sight of genetic preservation as an important goal. His website includes pictures of each of his varieties -- White Holland, Bronze, Bourbon Red, Royal Palm, Narragansett, Blue Slate, Eastern Wild, Black, and Buff--and information on their histories, utility, temperaments, and other characteristics. (The White Holland and Bronze are his favorites as meat birds; the Blue Slate for setting eggs, and the White Holland for temperament.)

The hatchery and the meat production fit well together, points out Mike. Whatever he does not sell as poults enters his flocks to be meat birds or replacement stock. “If I see a tom with excellent color or a hen with a beautiful shape, I can pick out the best breeders to keep,” he says. “All heritage breeds benefit from being used commercially. You need a market big enough to support keeping a big enough pool of birds that you can choose the best for breeding.”

Mike keeps his breeder birds in a special octagonal building of his own design. Feeding and watering facilities are located in the center of the building, with sheltered areas and outdoor runs for each breed radiating out like pieces of pie. The building is 40 feet across, and the area of each fenced run is about 7200 square feet. Besides making it easy for him to care for the birds and keep varieties separate, Mike designed the building so the birds can easily see sunlight when they are indoors, since he’d observed they were more likely to come inside in bad weather, and stay healthier, if he offered them “rooms with a view.” Says Mike, “I can get about 70% to stay in now when it rains or snows, “when before it was only about 30%.”

These breeder birds start laying in February, encouraged by lengthening days and fluorescent lights, and give him about 100 eggs a day. Mike then moves the eggs to a small incubation house, where they hatch out 28 days later, averaging an 83% hatching rate. Some are sold as one-day-old poults, while the rest—the ones being raised for meat, and sometimes replacement stock—go onto 10 acres of fenced pasture where they can range freely. Small open “carport” sheds and trees provide shelter and shade. Skunks, possums, and coyotes could be problems, but he removes or eliminates any marauders.

Mike feeds his turkeys a ration developed by Ohio State University in 1936 that he found in a 1939 turkey production handbook and had the specialists at Oklahoma State adapt to currently available feed materials. The feed contains no hormones or growth stimulants, but organic grain is prohibitively expensive. To maintain 300 breeder birds takes about half a ton of feed a week. At the peak of production, if he has 1000 birds growing out for market, he will use close to two tons a week. Heritage turkeys are slower growing than commercial birds, taking seven to eight months to achieve market weight, while commercial strains grow out in four months or less. “The longer grow-out time gives the meat a much better texture,” comments Mike.

Like many independent poultry producers, Mike has no nearby processing facility. He hauls the birds to a USDA-inspected processing plant eight hours away in Missouri, and then brings them home in his own freezer truck. He uses the truck not only to transport birds from the processor, but also to store them at the farm. “I have to run a generator to do it, and it is pretty noisy,” he says wryly. This processor is the closest one available to him, but he’s heard that a new processing plant may soon be opening in Springfield, Missouri, a mere 2-1/2 hours away.

Mike ships frozen birds all over the country, charging $3.50-$4.00/pound, plus shipping. “People like the flavor of them,” says Mike. “The price is higher, but as soon as they taste them, they don’t quibble about the price.” Customers send him testimonials such as, “Today (Thanksgiving), we tasted our first ever heritage turkey, and we are completely wowed.” While flavor is key to the turkeys’ popularity, he feels that presentation—how the bird looks when it comes out of the package--is a close second. At the processing plant, he packs each bird in a Cryovac bag for vacuum freezing. “The processor didn’t have the vacuum equipment,” says Mike, “but I knew about portable suction units from being a medic. I took one in, showed it to the inspector, and convinced her it would be okay to use.” He makes a point of making sure that the bird’s legs and wings are carefully tucked and that the packages are carefully stacked when he puts them on the shelves of his truck before they freeze. “I’m the final inspector,” he says. “If I like them, they go. If not, I eat them myself.”

Mike has given a lot of thought to strategies for marketing specialty meat products. With the help of Southern SAWG, Mike was able to take a trip to Europe and learn about the production and marketing of specialty poultry in 2002. He was particularly impressed by the bright red, eye-catching label of the “La Belle Rouge” company. His own label, incorporating a Bourbon Red turkey and an American flag filling the silhouette of the United States, committed him to expensive four-color printing, but gives him the memorable look he wants for a product he hopes his customers will not only remember but order over and over.

Mike has been able to ride a wave of an increasing public interest in heritage turkeys. In 2002, articles in the New York Times by Marian Burros and in USA Today sang the praises of rare breed turkeys as a flavorful Thanksgiving bird. That same year, the organization Slow Food nominated the Bourbon Red, Narragansett, Standard Bronze and Buff turkeys to its “Ark of Taste” and contracted with Mike for 500 birds. The following year, he contracted a similar quantity to a high-end gourmet mail order company. “If I can sell 2000 a year, I can stay on the farm full time,” he says. With a high quality product and a demand that shows no signs of letting up, it won’t take him long to reach and surpass his goal. 
 
Location: Stilwell, Oklahoma
Climate zone: 7 Soil type: Silty clay loam
Years in production: 12
Acreage: 120 total; about 10 acres devoted to turkey operation, the rest in hay.
Crops/products: Turkeys and a few chickens for meat, poults of 8 rare breed varieties.
Value-added products: Shipping of frozen, packaged birds nationwide
Notable facilities and equipment: Breeder building with fenced runs; incubation house; refrigerated truck for transport and storage.
Weeks in production: 90% of turkey sales around Thanksgiving and Christmas; poults in the spring only.
Markets: Nationwide, via individual mail order and contract to gourmet wholesalers.
Labor: Mike Walters and family members