Sept. 19, 2014 -- EXERPT # 12 from my book -- yet nameless. While I was going to school daily, in 1970-71, David was now working at the local Purina turkey processing plant in the rendering area. Purina had hatching farms, where turkey eggs were hatched as they developed the Honeysuckle White Turkey we all know so well. The hatcheries had a specific number of days to hatch the baby birds. The eggs that were infertile, and subsequently did not hatch, were dumped into trucks, and delivered to the plant for processing (cooking) into dog food. It allowed for a minimum of waste, and they did not have to throw all those thousands of eggs (that did not hatch) away. There was only one tiny (little publicized) fact that Ralston Purina choose to ignore. Hundreds of little turkeys were hatching late, in the trucks, on the way to the rendering plant – property of Ralston Purina. Poor David was horrified. He would open up the backs of the trucks and the “peeping” was deafening. It was his job to make sure the trucks dumped their loads into the cookers! I would come home from school, to find baby turkeys in boxes in our bathroom, under a heat lamps. Over several weeks, we raised 200 baby turkeys to 2 weeks old – and then we would give them away to local farmers. It became our mission to find the little babies homes during Spring (hatching season). These were babies who were destined to become Thanksgiving dinner. The last few we had went to David’s parent’s farm. Two years later, those few turkeys were still wandering their yard – massive white in body and (of course) dumb as (aggressive) bricks – resembling turkeys on steroids. When David’s dad finally put the last three out of their misery, each ½ of the bird weighted in at more than 35 pounds!
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 03:02:17 +0000
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