Name: A Turkey Farmer | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #367
Uploaded: 2021-11-18T13:00:08.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'A Turkey Farmer | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #367' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-18. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'A Turkey Farmer | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #367' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-11-18. Transcript available.

A Turkey Farmer | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #367

Today's episode is brought to you by Liquid Death.
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Thank you guys for all your love and support.
Today's guest is the owner of Hazard Mill Farms.
And he farms roughly 75,000 birds a year.
Getting them out the door and on to the dinner.
He's a second generation turkey farmer here in the United States of America.
We're happy to have that bird man with us today.
Turkey farmer, Robert Hupman.
For me to set that parking brake and let myself unwind.
Shine that light on me.
I'll sit and tell you my stories.
Shine on me.
And I will find a song.
I'll be singing just for me.
And now I've been moving way too...
Robert Hupman, we're sitting here with the turkey farmer, baby.
This is your time of year really coming up.
Yeah, we generally...
It's kind of funny.
We get that a lot.
But we're year around, you know.
So Thanksgiving is just another day for us.
We're pumping turkeys, you know, 24-7.
Oh, dang, man.
But do people, I feel like people, like...
Do you wake up on Thanksgiving morning and you're, like, fired up and the kids
are all, you know, they're fired up and people are doing, like, turkey calls?
Like, is it that kind of a day for you guys?
Is it...
How big of a...
Of this time of year is y'all's market share, basically?
For our market share, it's probably...
I don't know, maybe...
And I don't know what market share means, also.
Yeah, so generally, we're growing birds here around.
So if my flock happens to go out before Thanksgiving or a month before, fine.
If it doesn't, it's probably about, I don't know, 30% of what a true turkey
farm goes through.
Because we're pumping out, we're selling breast meat for, you know, lunch meat
and other items like that.
So I've had some, I mean, I don't know if I've had you guys.
How do I know if I've had you guys' turkey?
Most likely, if you ever had a Dietz & Watson sliced turkey, that'd probably be
one of ours.
Damn, man, thanks.
Yeah, I've loved it.
We sent some stuff out, when you lived in L.A., we sent, I think California
buys some of our product as well.
Oh, good.
Yeah, I probably enjoyed it there.
Okay, so for just a regular human, right?
I'm a human consumer.
What part of the turkey is used for, like, I guess, let me start here.
I'm just trying to think of where to start with, like, a turkey farmer, like.
You want a day in the life of a turkey farmer?
Like, start to finish, what I go through?
Yeah, yeah.
What's it like when you get up in the morning?
Like, what does it go like?
Thank you.
So, yeah, so I'll wake up.
I don't even know why I'm here.
No, you're good, you're good, man.
Thank you very much.
I've never been good, but that's sweet of you.
Yeah, Robert, so what is it like?
So you start in the beginning of the day.
What's it like?
Yeah, so normally I wake up 3.30, 4 o'clock a.m., do a little paperwork, knock
some emails out, go through the birds.
Luckily, right now, I've got a full-time farmhand, this is the first time ever,
so I don't have to be up there as much.
But we're going through them every day.
You're checking for any type of mortality, making sure.
They all have automatic feeders, so there's one feed line that runs
continuously down the barn 800 and some feet long.
So a feeder that runs down the barn that they're all housed in.
Yep, they're housed in.
They have plenty of room, ample amount.
Biosecurity is key, so we dress up, suit up, go through, dip pans, make sure.
Nothing comes in from the barn that's not supposed to be in there.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, we're very to the niche.
We do, like, animal welfare every year.
You know, we're really on top of our game because, you know, this is our
livelihood.
This is what I feed my kid.
Right.
With, and, you know, sometimes commercial farms, they'll call it commercial
farms, but it's really just a small town guy.
You know, it's a family maybe running a dairy operation, maybe running cattle,
and then they're also substituting some income for other family members for turkeys.
Okay.
So I can make the same, I make the same amount of money as if I was running
maybe 200 hit of cattle.
Okay, wow.
So with the amount of turkeys you're running.
Yes.
And how many birds you guys, you know, how many birds you guys dealing with
over there?
So roughly like 19,000 to 22,000 per flock, and that's two barns.
So, okay, so 19,000 per flock.
So what does that mean?
So generally we have a flock, and it'll last 19 weeks to a full-grown bird, and
they go to market.
Okay.
And then depending how it rotates, you know, you'll have like four weeks down,
eight weeks down, depending on when they're ready to place you with more poults
or more turkeys from the hatchery.
Okay.
So it starts with you get a batch of turkeys.
Yeah.
So you have no turkeys at some point.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So sometimes I'll have a downtime for four weeks when we're cleaning turkey
shit.
Okay.
So you're just cleaning out the barns.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, okay, so then you get the batch, right?
Yep.
They come in, fresh shavings, you know, we've spread out brand new shavings.
And they're all shaved out?
Yeah.
We clean the poop out.
It's all nice, nice, clean, pretty, pretty, pretty ground.
The damn strip club up in there, son.
Nice, nice lights.
Okay.
So you get them in, and are they scared?
Are they excited?
What do they seem like?
They're ready to eat.
Okay.
So they've done travel, got their, they're really happy birds, they're clucking.
They've been on the road, they're ready to chill out.
Yeah.
So we load them in, they come in.
It's nice and warm in there for them, because when they're younger, they like
it up, you know,
around the 80s to 100, depending on how, the age of the bird.
Okay.
So you guys have lamps and stuff, you know, they keep them warm.
Propane heaters.
Yep.
We got propane heaters.
Okay.
We brought a lot of propane.
So they're all in this, and at that point, you already bought them from a hatchery,
so they're
all in this barn.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you have them in this barn now.
How long until those birds, until you guys, you know, just pull that card on
them, you
know, and lured them out and sent them onto the market?
19, 18 and a half to 19 weeks.
Wow.
So they're, and then when they go out there, you know, averaging 40 to 45
pounds, how well
the feed conversion.
Okay.
So, and that is, you guys are feeding them the whole time.
How often do you feed them?
They eat nonstop.
No way.
They have access to water and food the entire time.
They're like my buddy, Corey, dude.
It's full buffet.
And will they eat, uh, and what are they eating?
Corn?
It's, it's a corn, soybean, and then sometimes wheat, and it's all natural.
We have our own hatchery.
Y'all ever go out there and give them a little snack at night?
Is there any kind of a bedtime snack?
Is there anything where you're going to sneak out there?
You're feeling in a good mood.
You're going to go out there and hook them up.
No.
There's, yeah.
Like me, you want moon pie?
But they're like, nah, we're good.
So they just like what they, they're real specific.
No, no.
They really just like that, that feed, that corn, soybean mix.
I mean, that's pretty much it.
They, their water, we have a water system.
I mean, they get in perfect pH every time.
Okay.
So like, we're really, really big on their water.
So it's like a little spa in there.
They're treating, you know, they got the heat going.
They got the food coming in.
They're really living.
They're living pretty large in there.
Okay.
Curtains go down.
They get natural light.
They get to see outside a little bit.
I mean, they're, you know, they're safe from any type of predators.
Sounds like a detox I went to one time, honestly, to be real honest.
Now, what about this?
So, so, so then you go in there and your daily routine, you cruise in there.
We cruise in there.
You have a special, you know, you got the gear on because you don't want to,
how detrimental
is it if you bring in something from the outside world?
So just for instance, you probably heard of avian flu.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So like back, uh, 2016, 15 and 16, they had a huge outbreak, killed a million
plus birds
nationwide, which it helped.
Yeah.
You're talking.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it, it, you know, we didn't luckily hit it and I hate to prosper on, you
know, bad
terms for other farmers because I hope we all get our, you know, right to do
and everybody
is successful.
Um, but it helped us out and bumped us up real high.
And, uh, uh, we did very well not having that avian flu, but it's literally, if
I went
outside, stepped in some goose crap and that fecal matter was on my shoe.
If I stepped in that barn with the same clothes I had on with that, it would a
hundred percent
affect and mortality rate kill.
No way.
Within like three days.
Damn.
So they're a real, it's a real, it's almost like a, they sound like almost like
a science,
not a science experiment, but they're like a real specific recipe.
If you put in a little bit of something that's not good, it's going down.
Yeah.
And, and see like avian.
They're real sensitive.
Yeah.
So other birds can affect other birds.
Same.
Like you can't have chickens on a turkey farm.
Same.
I can't have turkeys on a chicken farm.
Stuff that would mess with a chicken will mess with a turkey.
Oh, really?
And it won't, won't seem like the geese that fly, you know, they're, they're
just a carrier.
They, they don't, uh, they don't die from the avian flu, but they can spread it
to other birds.
And even if say the.
Damn.
It's like succession.
Have you seen that show?
No, no, I actually have.
It's like, um, yeah, it's like family members trying to, they're just not, it's
not just
like that, but it's similar.
Yeah.
It's just like, you know, do the same breed.
You think everybody be looking out for each other, you know, if goose is going
to fly by
and give them a little intel or something, drop a note.
But instead, yeah, it's a family right here.
The front guy almost looks like he got a little gobble on him, but they, uh,
they're all like
rich people and they're all like backstabbing, but they're all the same breed.
I did see the first season now that you said that.
Yeah.
I got it.
I've just seen a little bit, but I got to see some more, but, um, anyway, so
this is
really cool.
So, so now you go in there, you guys are kind of like, you, you, you, you're
careful what
you bring into the barn and you get in there, it's, it's the early morning.
And then what are you guys doing at that point?
So we're going through making sure, you know, none of the water lines are broke.
There's no water leaks, uh, the feed's all properly distributing through the
lines.
Occasionally you'll have a mortality.
One bird might just croak.
And from what?
Could have been anything?
Just anything.
Heart, liver, you know, just sometimes you just, you know, you have so many
birds in there.
Well, not so many, but you'll have birds in there and they just, you know, just
like
human life, man.
Out here.
No different if you were raising farm outside in the field, you know?
Oh, you could be jogging with your buddy and he's dead.
Yeah, just drop.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Same thing with those, dude.
Tom, Tom, just drop.
Tom, number two is like, bro, what's up?
I ain't never the same.
Win some, lose some, man.
And you don't know what's going on.
They might have small beef going on in there.
They, you know, occasionally they do fight, you know, they'll occasionally
rough up each
other.
You got to break them up.
Will they?
Yeah.
Yeah, dude.
Like no nonsense, Keith Peterson.
Maybe you got to get in there like Herb Dean right in between them.
Okay, so now you got the farm going.
Everything's going pretty swell.
Yeah.
At what point do you guys start to get them ready for the slaughter, basically?
What do yo