Here's where to find locally grown, fresh Thanksgiving turkeys in Massachusetts

A Shinglebrook Farm in Shelburne. photo by CISA.

When Robert Rollins was growing up on the family-run Sunny Acres Turkey Farm in East Longmeadow, they grew and sold 30,000 turkeys a year.

For this Thanksgiving, he and his wife Diane will raise 100 to 120 turkeys at their D&R Farms in Hampden.

But the birds -- who head off Saturday for, um, processing -- are mostly sold already, and Rollins' fellow turkey raisers say demand is high.

"People want fresh," said Marie Lukasik of Lukasik Family Farm in South Hadley, in business since 1948.

The Lukasiks will raise about 200 birds as well. They'll be about 16 to 18 pounds, dressed, and will sell for $3.95 a pound.

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That's more expensive than the supermarket birds, sold frozen and often at a deep discount to get customers in the door.

But as Lukasik said, the local birds are fresh.

"It's a week before Thanksgiving and they are still here on the farm," she said. "They are looking at me right now."

Rollins said the typical frozen turkey was killed back in June and has been in the deep freeze at about 5 degrees above zero since then. Those birds get injected with flavored juice.

"You are not talking the same type of tasting bird," he said. "Ours are out in nature. We plant grass for them. They are about as free range as then can be and still be protected."

Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, a South Deerfield-based organization that promotes local farms, lists seven businesses raising and selling their own turkeys as well as a number of meat markets and other stores that sell fresh local birds, said communications officer Claire Morenon.

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Claire Morenon of CISA (photo provided)

Especially in New England, where the holiday originated, people should want to eat local foods.

"All the traditional foods of Thanksgiving are foods that are in season, here, right now," she said. "Turkey, apple pie, potatoes. Those are all our seasonal foods and people in Arizona are eating them. There is no reason we shouldn't be eating local."

The Massachusetts Department of Agriculture lists more locations around the state where fresh turkeys are available.

The federal agricultural census for Massachusetts listed 176 turkey farms in the state back in 2012, the most recent year for which numbers are available. They sold 12,000 birds.

But that was down from 198 farms and 17,000 birds five years earlier.

"It's more expensive to raise animals here," Morenon said.

And to kill them here, Rollins said.

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Thanksgiving 1830s-style at Old Sturbridge Village.

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When turkey farms like Sunny Acres closed in 1995 and the Bennett Turkey Farm in Wilbraham closed in 2007, it took away processing plants where turkeys could be killed and dressed in accordance with federal rules.

Rollins said he's trying to start his own processing plant, but he can't say yet where it might be.

But in the meantime, he's gone to Vermont to get his birds processed. This year's crop will go to a plant in Hardwick.

One processor in Rhode Island said they'd be happy to slaughter his birds. But he'd have to come in October and get the job done. They were all booked up in November.

"That's too early," he said. "Then the birds aren't really fresh."

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2018 Thanksgiving Survey Infographic

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Anne Diemand Bucci, one of the owners of Diemand Farm in Wendell, said the immense amount of labor involved in turkey farming makes it a difficult business.

The folks at Diemand Farm processed 3,200 turkeys at the farm this week in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

"It took us eight days," she said. "It is exhausting."

All but a few hundred of those 3,200 turkeys are already sold. The remainder are all 21- or 22-pounders.

Most customers either want small 12- or 15-pound birds or order larger turkeys as big as 35 pounds.

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Western Massachusetts turkey producers, via CISA:

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D & R Farm -- Hampden

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Diemand Farm -- Wendell

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Hettie Belle Farm -- Warwick