Archives for category: PresidentialTurkey

We’re in DC! Hey this is Brianna, Brenna, Preston and Val, and we flew into DC last night with Jenn and Steve. We’re staying at an awesome hotel near the White House and we have gorgeous views. It’s for sure the nicest hotel any of us have ever stayed in. And even though the weather is kinda crummy, it’s still way warmer than when we left Minneapolis, so we’re happy.

Today was our only day to sightsee, so we started out early. We walked to breakfast and then hit the Washington Monument, the Korean War Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Vietnam War Memorial and the Holocaust Museum. The monuments and memorials were all really touching, especially the Korean War Memorial. The Holocaust Museum is so big that we didn’t have time to finish the whole permanent exhibition, but it was profound. We lit candles for Anne Frank in the Hall of Remembrances.

We’re back at the hotel now, getting ready for a media event with the birds and Rick Huisinga. Gotta run, but we’ll send another blog after the ceremony tomorrow!

We’re going to Washington, D.C.! About a week ago, we received an invitation from National Turkey Federation Chairman, Rick Huisinga, to attend the White House Ceremony where he’ll present President Obama with the birds we’re raising. The Minnesota Turkey Growers Association is funding our trip as a way to cap off the experience for us. We are very happy to have the opportunity to see our hard work pay off! Thank you MTGA!

Before we leave for D.C., we’re going to St. Paul to attend an MTGA event at the Capitol with the governor. Val is going to put one of our presidential birds on a table for the governor! It’ll be a good way for us to gauge how well we’ve done in readying the birds for the president.

On Monday, November 21, our high school is hosting a send-off for the birds and us. Willmar’s Mayor Yanish, our principal Mr. Anderson, our FFA and Ag teacher Mr. Pearson, and MTGA Executive Director Steve Olson will join us to thank our school and community for supporting us during this project. Afterward, the birds will drive to Washington, and we’ll leave for our flight to D.C.

This is a great adventure and we learned a lot of responsibility during the project. The turkeys are now about 40 to 45 pounds and are pretty much done growing. Their heads are now bright blue, their wattles are dark red and they love to strut around their pens. Oh and they gobble every time we enter the barn now!

This has been a wonderful experience for the four of us. We hope to write to you more about our journey to Washington, D.C. and we know we’ll have an awesome time. We’d like to give a big thanks to Rick, Jenn and Mr. Pearson, and of course to the staff of Minnesota Turkey Growers for making this possible.

Hi everyone, Brenna and Brianna here!  On Wednesday, October 26, we had the special honor of visiting schools in the Twin Cities metro area to present two of our special turkeys to elementary students. We talked about how we are raising the turkeys and preparing them for the White House trip. The students saw a neat video that the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association made about the turkey industry, including how birds are hatched, the different barns they live in as they grow and the kind of food they eat.

We also had a veterinarian talk to the elementary students about turkeys and how important it is to raise them in the correct environment for their ages. For instance, baby turkeys (poults) have heaters and really soft, absorbent shavings on the barn floor so that they stay warm and dry while they are growing. We also showed the kids how shiny the water drinkers and feeders are so that the birds will investigate them. Once they find their food and water, they can have as much of both as they want!

We told the students about FFA and what we do in the organization. They were surprised to learn that it’s not just about driving tractors and planting corn! We are learning leadership and speaking skills along with the other projects we do. We encouraged them to get involved in their communities and to explore new things.

The students were very interested to learn from us that day but they were most excited to see the turkeys in real life! They all asked about the snood (the red skin that hangs across a tom’s beak) and the beard (a tuft of coarse hair on a tom’s chest). Since the schools we visited were in St. Paul and Coon Rapids, many of the kids had never been on a farm before and maybe didn’t know how important farmers are to our economy and our world. The turkeys were very well behaved and everything went really well.  We guess our work is paying off!

Overall, it was a really fun day!

Hey this is Brianna, Val, Brenna and Preston checking in! We spent the week of October 17 in Indianapolis at the National FFA Convention and didn’t get to spend very much time with our birds.  When we got back, we immediately noticed how much the birds have changed!  They have gotten a lot bigger since we first brought them to their special barn, and even in the week we were gone, they grew more!  This past week, the girls noticed that about 4 birds came up to them and started to peck at their boots. The guys noticed that the birds gobbled.  Some of the birds’ heads are turning blue and their snoods are growing longer, which shows that they are maturing. Everyone has noticed that the turkeys are also starting to strut.

We continue with our daily chores, but we have added a new one.  We now pick up the birds and set them on tables every day just like at the White House ceremony. They still are not completely used to us, but that’s improving every day.  Next week we are going to bring a radio to the barn for added noise and hope to get some lights to turn off and on to mimic camera flashes. By doing this, the birds will get used to all of the commotion and attention they’ll experience during the ceremony.  We’ve gotten a lot of attention too from reporters who have heard about our story.  Watch for our next blog post when we’ll tell you all about it!

By Lara Durben

Greetings and gobble gobble from the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association (MTGA)!  I serve as the Communications & Program Director for our organization and it’s been exciting to see all the media excitement already generated by our Presidential turkey flock of hopefuls. Just this week, we’ve fielded inquiries from all major Minneapolis-St. Paul television stations, along with several media outlets in Greater Minnesota as well.

You can view a great article in the West Central Tribune here, and view video from KSAX-TV out of Alexandria, MN here.

We anticipate the buzz only growing next week, as we are planning for two very special school visits on Wednesday, October 26.  We’ll be bringing two turkeys from the Presidential Flock to Epiphany Catholic School in Coon Rapids and St. Paul City School in the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul. In addition to the educational activities we have planned for each school, we simply can’t wait for these elementary students to meet our very special turkeys!

In the meantime, we are anticipating that the official White House invitation will come soon. And we will be posting a new video on our Web site next week so be sure to watch for that – it’s a fun piece, especially for kids, that shows a little bit more about turkey farming and also brings in a few history lessons about Thanksgiving, too!

Do you have a question for the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association? Or maybe you want to ask our Presidential turkeys something?  If so, post your question below and we’ll get back to you!

Gobble Gobble!

Hi, this is Brianna, Preston, Val and Brenna. We are a part of the Willmar chapter of Minnesota Future Farmers of America Association (FFA) and we are proud to be a part of this turkey raising opportunity. We were selected to participate in this project by our high school agriculture teacher, Mr. Neil Pearson. We all attend Willmar High school.

At our first meeting, we met the project leaders from Willmar Poultry Company and the Minnesota Turkey Growers Association. They taught us how to care for the turkeys and explained biosecurity, which means that we have to use special boots and smocks when we’re around the turkeys so that we’re not bringing any germs into the barn. We also can’t be in contact with other birds before we enter the barn.

The turkey move went great. We first had to go to one of Willmar Poultry’s turkey barns to pick out turkeys that fit our criteria. All of the birds are toms, or male turkeys. They will eventually grow to between 30 and 40 pounds! The day of the move, everyone got a chance to transport a turkey into the trailer. At first, the girls were kind of leery about lifting the birds and moving them into and out of the trailer, but once the guys helped, everyone did their part. Loading the turkeys was a lot harder then unloading them. They now live in an environment that is set up similar to any traditional turkey barn you might see. The birds have plenty of space to move around and have access to food and clean water 24-7. The only difference is these birds are getting a little spoiled because they need to have a lot of human interaction, to help prepare them for the possible trip to the White House!

We check on the turkeys and handle them almost every day. Before we go in to do our chores for the day, we peek through a window to see what the turkeys do when people are not around. For instance, one day the toms were “dust bathing” or rubbing their feathers in the wood shavings, which is what turkeys do to help keep themselves clean. (Other animals do this too – like when horses roll around in the grass.) It is quite entertaining to see how much their personalities change when we are around, but they are starting to become less timid around us. For chores, we clean the drinkers, fix the shavings, stir the feed and sweep. We also spray down the floors with cleaner when we leave.

This project is a great learning experience for all of us. Since we have been working with the turkeys, they have grown bigger and more mature. We have also noticed that they are getting used to us being around and they don’t watch us so much as they used to. They have started eating when we’re in the pens and sometimes even fall asleep when we are around.

We split up the hours fairly when we take care of them. The guys go on Mondays and Wednesdays. And the girls go on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Someone from Willmar Poultry Company also goes out every day to supervise them and make sure that they are all healthy and cared for. If we have the chance, we visit them on the weekends. This week, the guys noticed that the turkeys were gobbling. We still have a lot of work to do to tame them and get them ready for the big day, but it is going very well so far. We play music from our cell phones for them and hope to start bringing new sounds into the area soon. You can learn more about the turkeys in our upcoming blogs.

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the blog of the anticipated 2011 Presidential Turkey! Right now, a special flock of turkeys is being raised with care by a handful of Minnesota high school students, in hopes that one of the turkeys will be invited to make a special journey to the White House in November to be presented as the National Thanksgiving Turkey to President Obama this year. Throughout the next two months, the students raising these stately birds will be sharing their story right here in this blog.

But before we introduce you to these students, let’s talk a little history.

In 1947, during President Truman’s administration, an official ceremony was held to present the president with a turkey. Each year since then the National Turkey Federation has been invited to participate in this ceremony by raising and presenting the National Thanksgiving Turkey to the president. Early Presidential turkeys were destined for a dinner plate until President George H.W. Bush began the official tradition of pardoning the turkey in 1989. With any luck, the Minnesota Turkey this year will serve his duty at the White House and then be brought (along with his lucky alternate!) to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, to live out the rest of his life.

Now, back to our turkey farming apprentices!

These four students from Willmar, Minnesota are members of their high school’s FFA chapter (formerly known as Future Farmers of America), and are charged with the important task of caring for National Thanksgiving Turkey flock. Though none of them have direct experience raising turkeys, they are all excited to learn precisely what these birds need to thrive. Through this blog the students hope to bring you along with them on this journey, so you too can learn more about raising and caring for these animals! Please check back in the coming days and weeks for information and updates from our turkey farmers in training!