Name: A Day in the Life of a Turkey Farmer 🦃
Uploaded: 2023-11-23T12:00:17.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'A Day in the Life of a Turkey Farmer 🦃' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-23. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'A Day in the Life of a Turkey Farmer 🦃' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-23. Transcript available.

yeah robert so what is it like so you start in the beginning of the day yeah so
normally i wake up
3 30 4 o'clock a.m do a little paperwork knock some emails out um go through
the birds luckily
right now i got a full-time farmhand this is the first time ever so um 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 it's uh they have plenty of room ample amount we you know 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
we're really on top of our game because you know this is our livelihood this is
why i feed my kid
right with and you know some sometimes commercial farmers can 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 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 uh you know how
many birds you guys dealing with over there uh so roughly like 19 000 20 to 22
000 per flock and
that's two barns so okay so 19 000 per flock so what does that mean so uh
generally we have a flock and
it'll last uh 19 weeks as to a full-grown bird and they go to market okay okay
and then uh depending how
it rotates you know you'll have like four weeks down eight weeks down depending
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 down
time for four weeks
well 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 um they come in fresh shavings land 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 strip club up in there yeah nice nice lights okay
so you get them in and
they are they scared are they excited what do they seem like they're ready to
eat okay so they've done
travel got there they're really happy birds or clucking they've been on the
road yeah ready to chill out
yeah so we we load them in they come in um 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 how the age of
the bird okay so
you guys have lamps and stuff now they keep them warm propane heaters yeah we
got propane heaters okay
and uh so they're all in this hat and uh at that point it's 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 lowered them
out and send them
on to the market uh 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 okay 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 non-stop they
have that way they have
access to water and food the entire time they're like my buddy cory dude 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 so 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 gonna sneak out there you
feeling in a good mood you're gonna
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 no no they really just like that that
feed that corn
soybean max i mean that's pretty much it they their water we have a water
system i mean they're getting
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 yeah okay curtains go down they get
natural light they
get to see outside a little bit i mean they're they know they're safe from any
type of predators
sounds like a detox i went to one time honestly to be real honest yeah um now
what about this so so
so then you go in there on 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
damn which it helped yeah you're talking about it yeah yeah so 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
right we'll 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 100 percent effect and mortality rate killed 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 ex 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 see like avian 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 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 that's no no actually i haven't anyway so this is really cool so so
now you go in there you
guys are kind of like you you you're careful what you bring into the barn yep
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
the feed's all properly
distributing through the lines okay 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're just you know just like human life man out here they'll no different if
you were raising for
outside in the field you know oh you could be jogging with your buddy and he's
dead yeah yeah same
thing with those dude tom tom just drop tom number two he's like bro what's up
i ain't never the same 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 um how has the meat damn that's you right
there yeah damn that's
your first wife yeah this is damn beautiful pretty good that's that's actually
when they're going out
so that's a good picture see feed lines raised everything's there lights are on
it's nighttime that's
one of the heavier birds that he probably weighed close to uh 46 47 pounds and
this is only a middle
tom right no this is a heavy tom oh this is heavy that's that's big boys there
that's that's see
they got little beards whatnot dude it's really they're kind of beautiful i
didn't i guess i have
not seen pictures like this yeah they're nice pretty white birds and uh really
clean like i said the
that's what we do litter quality we're in there tilling day-to-day operation
every week we go in
there with a tractor and a tiller to make sure the you know the shavings get
brought back to the top
everything stays nice for their feet because if you if you got poor litter
quality and poor poor life
these birds won't look like that they'll be uh we really run down they'll have
burned pads on their
feet from the turkey turkey crap uh-huh it'll burn their feet so that's why we
yeah that's why we make
sure everything's nice and nice and clean so they're a real sensitive animal
huh they can be yeah
it's interesting how they're tough and you know their turkeys are smart and
dumb all at the same
time i guess just like me yeah me too dude damn i didn't know it's possible and
then here we are
okay wow so you got the birds now you guys and when they when they when they do
when they do send
them out to harvest when they send them out what's the process do they line
them all up and like just
neck them out now this will this probably a little wild we'll bring in 19
tractor trailers and hand load
them on three guys they'll bring them up it's like a little escalator takes
them right up and they
pick one up put them in the cage load the cage up truck goes down turns back
around they can load
a truck up in like 35 minutes and they gassing them well they take them back to
the processing
facility and that's they i think they use like a co2 base and they'll just put
them to sleep then uh
they're cutting them up really sing them up conveyor belt so they put the meat
to they just put them to
sleep yeah so they're not shooting them it's not like a bullet or anything no
no yeah so like on the
farm they you got two options for your animal welfare you can uh either they
have like a bolt gun like
a cap gun you hit them in the back of the head with it and they'll just take
them right out or some
farmers rig up like a little box with co2 and they'll put them in and that way
they go night just go
sleep and then you put them in the compost and then we compost the birds for uh
crop rotation we'll
put them on fields and stuff oh so they'll become a fertilizer almost yeah we'll
create fertilizer
you know all natural so you so you guys don't do the actual uh so the killing
isn't actually done
by you guys it's shipped it's like outsourced yeah so so now i will you know
bugsy seagull out
there just rolls up huh yeah so we will kill birds and i ones i have to call i'll
i'll pull the meat
out for friends and family cut the breast meat i got some pictures i'll give
you guys and you can
show them the size of the breast and stuff like that but damn yeah man constant
now what about
this guy is a question right here this italian guy all right what's up theo
what's up turkey farmer
i got a question man what's up with the free range and the natural and the
organic and the regular
is that just a farce is it the real deal what are you buying at the stores
thanks that's that's
good question yeah it's a great question man yeah what is it what how do they
divide that up what do
you guys have to do do you guys have to so so if it's uh like the other farms
are more like the
organic farms or antibiotic free that's uh it's heavily regulated so you got a
lot more paperwork
and actually like to be an organic turkey it has to come for organic females so
all those the closest
organic female to us i believe is in pennsylvania so we have contract farms npa
that grows grows that
particular bird okay so so so a lot of what goes and i heard this i have a
friend that works for like
a meat company yeah called cow or something i think and uh but it's kow right
and he sent me some fancy
meat one time and it's good but you know it's still expensive but um he was
saying that what determines
grass-fed it's just uh it's certain like really regulations doesn't even really
have to do sometimes
what they're eating it's just sometimes where they live at things like that
what uh so what's that like
for you guys so you have the different different levels so like a uh au or
whatever they call it's
antibiotic free the only difference in between that is if say a bird gets like
a common cold or something
you wouldn't be able to treat it with like our pen or penicillin for like one
or two days and
everything's done very properly with a vet you know we have a vet that checks
the bird it's it's just a
crazy uh industry but they they make sure they've really went and stepped you
know from what it used
to be to now yeah it's it's by the book everything's clean and done
professionally but so was it it used
to be the it used to be this the damn dark art i from from what i hear back in
we've been doing it
since 89 and it's been fairly consistent all the way up just you know more
regulations and we we're
wanting to stay on top of everything yeah um but for like a a free-range bird
so all they'll do is
they'll take my barn build doors and then the doors will open and then they can
go out in a fenced-in
area okay um sometimes they don't even go out like my buddy grows uh free range
yeah they free uh
free-range chickens same thing he spent all this money they leave the doors
open the birds are inside
where it's nice and safe anyway if it's sunny they might come out for a little
bit check up and then
they see a hawk or something they'll hightail it back in yeah maybe andy dufresne
sneaks out at night
or one of them or one of them government geese drop a turd down there and puts
them all out
hope you enjoyed that video and you can watch another and you can watch this
one you can watch this one
different options different choices some guy just brings you one option not
this guy two options watch
one this one or this one

A Day in the Life of a Turkey Farmer 🦃

yeah robert so what is it like so you start in the beginning of the day yeah so
normally i wake up
3 30 4 o'clock a.m do a little paperwork knock some emails out um go through
the birds luckily
right now i got a full-time farmhand this is the first time ever so um 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 it's uh they have plenty of room ample amount we you know 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
we're really on top of our game because you know this is our livelihood this is
why i feed my kid
right with and you know some sometimes commercial farmers can 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 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 uh you know how
many birds you guys dealing with over there uh so roughly like 19 000 20 to 22
000 per flock and
that's two barns so okay so 19 000 per flock so what does that mean so uh
generally we have a flock and
it'll last uh 19 weeks as to a full-grown bird and they go to market okay okay
and then uh depending how
it rotates you know you'll have like four weeks down eight weeks down depending
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 down
time for four weeks
well 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 um they come in fresh shavings land 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 strip club up in there yeah nice nice lights okay
so you get them in and
they are they scared are they excited what do they seem like they're ready to
eat okay so they've done
travel got there they're really happy birds or clucking they've been on the
road yeah ready to chill out
yeah so we we load them in they come in um 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 how the age of
the bird okay so
you guys have lamps and stuff now they keep them warm propane heaters yeah we
got propane heaters okay
and uh so they're all in this hat and uh at that point it's 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 lowered them
out and send them
on to the market uh 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 okay 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 non-stop they
have that way they have
access to water and food the entire time they're like my buddy cory dude 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 so 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 gonna sneak out there you
feeling in a good mood you're gonna
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 no no they really just like that that
feed that corn
soybean max i mean that's pretty much it they their water we have a water
system i mean they're getting
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 yeah okay curtains go down they get
natural light they
get to see outside a little bit i mean they're they know they're safe from any
type of predators
sounds like a detox i went to one time honestly to be real honest yeah um now
what about this so so
so then you go in there on 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
damn which it helped yeah you're talking about it yeah yeah so 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
right we'll 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 100 percent effect and mortality rate killed 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 ex 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 see like avian 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 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 that's no no actually i haven't anyway so this is really cool so so
now you go in there you
guys are kind of like you you you're careful what you bring into the barn yep
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
the feed's all properly
distributing through the lines okay 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're just you know just like human life man out here they'll no different if
you were raising for
outside in the field you know oh you could be jogging with your buddy and he's
dead yeah yeah same
thing with those dude tom tom just drop tom number two he's like bro what's up
i ain't never the same 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 um how has the meat damn that's you right
there yeah damn that's
your first wife yeah this is damn beautiful pretty good that's that's actually
when they're going out
so that's a good picture see feed lines raised everything's there lights are on
it's nighttime that's
one of the heavier birds that he probably weighed close to uh 46 47 pounds and
this is only a middle
tom right no this is a heavy tom oh this is heavy that's that's big boys there
that's that's see
they got little beards whatnot dude it's really they're kind of beautiful i
didn't i guess i have
not seen pictures like this yeah they're nice pretty white birds and uh really
clean like i said the
that's what we do litter quality we're in there tilling day-to-day operation
every week we go in
there with a tractor and a tiller to make sure the you know the shavings get
brought back to the top
everything stays nice for their feet because if you if you got poor litter
quality and poor poor life
these birds won't look like that they'll be uh we really run down they'll have
burned pads on their
feet from the turkey turkey crap uh-huh it'll burn their feet so that's why we
yeah that's why we make
sure everything's nice and nice and clean so they're a real sensitive animal
huh they can be yeah
it's interesting how they're tough and you know their turkeys are smart and
dumb all at the same
time i guess just like me yeah me too dude damn i didn't know it's possible and
then here we are
okay wow so you got the birds now you guys and when they when they when they do
when they do send
them out to harvest when they send them out what's the process do they line
them all up and like just
neck them out now this will this probably a little wild we'll bring in 19
tractor trailers and hand load
them on three guys they'll bring them up it's like a little escalator takes
them right up and they
pick one up put them in the cage load the cage up truck goes down turns back
around they can load
a truck up in like 35 minutes and they gassing them well they take them back to
the processing
facility and that's they i think they use like a co2 base and they'll just put
them to sleep then uh
they're cutting them up really sing them up conveyor belt so they put the meat
to they just put them to
sleep yeah so they're not shooting them it's not like a bullet or anything no
no yeah so like on the
farm they you got two options for your animal welfare you can uh either they
have like a bolt gun like
a cap gun you hit them in the back of the head with it and they'll just take
them right out or some
farmers rig up like a little box with co2 and they'll put them in and that way
they go night just go
sleep and then you put them in the compost and then we compost the birds for uh
crop rotation we'll
put them on fields and stuff oh so they'll become a fertilizer almost yeah we'll
create fertilizer
you know all natural so you so you guys don't do the actual uh so the killing
isn't actually done
by you guys it's shipped it's like outsourced yeah so so now i will you know
bugsy seagull out
there just rolls up huh yeah so we will kill birds and i ones i have to call i'll
i'll pull the meat
out for friends and family cut the breast meat i got some pictures i'll give
you guys and you can
show them the size of the breast and stuff like that but damn yeah man constant
now what about
this guy is a question right here this italian guy all right what's up theo
what's up turkey farmer
i got a question man what's up with the free range and the natural and the
organic and the regular
is that just a farce is it the real deal what are you buying at the stores
thanks that's that's
good question yeah it's a great question man yeah what is it what how do they
divide that up what do
you guys have to do do you guys have to so so if it's uh like the other farms
are more like the
organic farms or antibiotic free that's uh it's heavily regulated so you got a
lot more paperwork
and actually like to be an organic turkey it has to come for organic females so
all those the closest
organic female to us i believe is in pennsylvania so we have contract farms npa
that grows grows that
particular 