There is still time to get a fresh oven-ready turkey for your Thanksgiving table.
By Amy Batista, Special Writer
EAST WINSDOR — There is still time to get a fresh oven-ready turkey for your Thanksgiving table.
”We took a 1,000 orders so that means there’s 1,200 extra turkeys that were not ordered of all different sizes,” said owner Ronny Lee of Lee Turkey Farm.
Each turkey order comes with a pot holder with the Lee Turkey Hill logo and farm contact information on it and directions on how to prepare the turkey tuck into the box, Mr. Lee said.
Turkeys will be now only be available on a first come, first serve basis.
The price for fresh turkeys is currently $3.09 per pound and frozen birds are $2.89 per pound.
”People ask me what’s the difference between our turkeys and what makes them so much better,” Mr. Lee said. “We don’t cut any corners and I like to tell people that if you eat hamburgers all your life, hamburgers are just fine. Try steak once and it kind of changes your opinion. You will still eat hamburgers occasionally but you will want a steak once in awhile.”
”For Thanksgiving, we are going to process 2,200 turkeys fresh killed in seven days,” Mr. Lee said adding that they were just starting the process on Nov. 16 and will be completed by Sunday.
”The majority of purchases this time of year are fresh,” Mr. Lee said.
Frozen turkeys are sold throughout the year.
”You can always buy parts – legs, wings, thighs, breast meat- and during the summer we do turkey burgers and turkey salad which go real good with corn,” Mr. Lee said.
Lee Turkey farm has been in the business of raising turkeys since 1938.
”My dad started raising turkeys,” Mr. Lee said adding he was 11years old. “It was actually a 4-H project and here we are today. We attribute the turkey business to saving the farm and getting them out of the depression and we have been raising turkeys as part of the farming business ever since.”
According to Mr. Lee, years ago, they raised 9,000 turkeys and they were sold live to mainly butcher shops.
”As the 1960s progressed, supermarkets replaced the butcher shops they needed to find a better outlet so they got into frozen processing,” Mr. Lee said. “We don’t not sell any turkeys to other markets. They are all sold directly to customers from here.”
The highlight for Mr. Lee is the loyal “customers.”
”We have generations of customers coming back.” He said. “It’s not that our turkeys are sold locally but they travel all over the United States. People that use to live in this area ten or twenty years ago they will set it up that they are vacationing or have business here and fly their turkey back to Arizona, Florida, California, all over.”
Today, the farm raises 3,000 turkeys.
”We do not hatch them here,” Mr. Lee said. “I buy them when they are one day old and we raise them from that point on.”
The turkeys are feed “a lot of soybeans” for protein along with corn which is “very essential for good tasting poultry or beef”, according to Mr. Lee.
All natural ingredients are used when it comes to feeding the turkeys. No hormones or penicillin are used.
”More corn and you will end up with a top quality product,” Mr. Lee said. “That’s what we shoot for.”
The turkeys were being processed in the oldest building on the farm which was built in 1802 which has be retro-fitted over the years and modernized, according to Mr. Lee.
”I would have to say this building is probably the oldest and longest running processing plant I would have to say in the country,” Mr. Lee said. “There is no assembly line used where they are hanging from shackles at all of the plants.”
Sixty turkeys if they are small, 48 if they are large, they are brought in a time upstairs to the “killing room.”
A total of 365 turkeys were being processed last Saturday.
Once the turkeys are cleaned they are sent downstairs where the neck meat is taken off, they separate the heart, liver, gizzard and giblets. Next, the turkey goes to another table where kidneys, the lungs, and the “in edibles” that get thrown away.
”When it’s all clean and inspected they go into the chill tanks,” Mr. Lee said adding the turkeys sit in the chill tanks for two hours.
According to Mr. Lee, it is “essential” to get the body temperature down.
”If you don’t, the turkeys can dry out inside the bag and you can have bacteria growing and make somebody sick,” Mr. Lee said.
The air gets vacuumed out of the bags, which are clear bags.
”Most places use opaque bags which hides the blemishes,” Mr. Lee said. “We want people to see that we put out the best that we possibly can. We’re not going to hide it.”
Each of the turkeys being processed was 20 weeks old.
”We had Toms that dressed out at 46 and a half pounds,” Mr. Lee said. “That’s clean and ready for the oven.”
The largest turkey ever more than 47 pounds.
”Our turkeys are growing faster and faster every year and that is because of genetics,” Mr. Lee said. “Where we buy our turkeys from the hatchery they get their eggs from the breeder. The breeding is spectacular.”
Breeding has also changed over the past 25 years.
According to Mr. Lee, 25 years ago, they would start breeding turkeys at the end of May and beginning of June to get a turkey which would weigh 35 pounds.
This year, they started on June 23 and the turkeys weighed in the 40s.
The staff have other full time jobs, some take time off just to help out around this time of year.
”We are in an out of here in 10 days,” Mr. Lee said.
Bill Hayward, of East Windsor, is one of those staff members that is not your typical person who you would find in the “kill room.” He has been helping for the past 15 years.
”I asked him whom he gets to kill the turkeys,” said Mr. Hayward in reference to how he got the job after visiting the farm after moving into the area and asking offering to help out. “He said yes because he didn’t think I would do it, I never even hunted.”
Mr. Haywad’s full-time job is working in the software industry, which is very different from the role he had on this weekend.
According to Mr. Hayward, they started catching the birds at 6:15 a.m. and did seven loads, which ranged from 28 to 60 turkeys each.

