Two Arizona turkey farmers, Pam Audis and Alex Arizmendi, have separate plots under their shared poultry farming operation in Paulden called Ridgeview Farms.
An abundance of on-demand calories available in supermarkets makes it easy to forget that (1) food comes from the land and (2) it has been heavily influenced by human history and culture. The humble tamal is a reminder.
Turkey. Many of us know it in two forms: holiday staple and diet lunch meat. Yet the biggest bird in our customary diet is much more than a fraught icon of colonization, a caloric data point, or an annually overcooked centerpiece. They are spunky, chunky, and funkier than any chicken. Human cohabitation with turkeys has an extensive history and persists through devoted poultry farmers right here where it all began.
Turkey Heritage
Without the ancestral Puebloan people, there would be no Meleagris gallopavo domesticus, the domestic turkey we gobble up today. For thousands of years, evidence from middens—well-aged food scrap heaps—in the Four Corners/Northern Mexico area shows that turkey flesh was rarely consumed despite evidence of the people keeping flocks. People fed a significant portion of human-grown grain to the large birds, yet only the eggs were eaten. Historians widely accept that the ritual sacrifice of turkeys was initially the primary reason for developing husbandry systems with the dark-eyed birds. Then, around the year 1000 CE, the turkey’s purpose shifted from spiritual to gustatorial.
By the time Europeans encountered the Americas, Native peoples’ hunger for turkey meat led them to breed tastier birds. They became a darling of the Columbian Exchange, merited by being easy to snatch and transport. Wild flocks dwindled to near extinction over the coming centuries and today are known as heritage varieties. In contrast, breeders abroad continued to select for fatter, whiter, and tamer stock, which led to the Broad Breasted White turkey.
Today, one chooses between production and heritage turkeys. The former are the choice of many small to medium-scale farms and all industrial-scale operations. Heritage turkeys are closer to their wild counterparts and come from legacy growers. They boast a higher percentage of dark meat and can live multiple years, making them suitable for egg production.
Heritage Turkey
Audis fell in love with heritage turkeys two decades ago. Adding to an already diversified poultry production featuring chicken, duck, and quail, she started with distinct breeds—Narragansett and Royal Palm—gifted to her by a neighbor. After tasting the bounty they produced, she was smitten. The meat? Rich, dark, and subtle. The eggs? Top tier.
Her two flocks fulfill different needs. One is harvested for meat around 7–8 months old, when they weigh 15–20 pounds. They are a giddy bunch, skittish but clearly relishing attention. Audis coos at them, “You’re so handsome!” as the toms shake their tailfeathers for us. Next door is a calmer flock of adult egg producers which will lay a few eggs a week, spring through fall. This group of 20 is all female except for one stately, strutting tom.
Arizmendi, her son-in-law, has been raising Broad Breasted Whites since 2017. Production breeds can only reproduce through artificial insemination and must be ordered from hatcheries. Most of the year, he receives batches of 40 or so day-old poults at a time. In four months, the birds weigh between 12 and 25 pounds.
Toms are preferred because they grow almost twice as large as hens in the same time frame, though there is no way to sex eggs like there is with chickens. Once a year, he places a gargantuan order for the holidays. This year he ordered 500 poults. When I visited the farm, Arizmendi was days away from this annual delivery, which was already delayed by a week. For both farmers, the roughest part of the turkey life cycle is the first few weeks. Losses can be devastating both economically and emotionally.
Poults cost several dollars each and money-back guarantees are valid for only a few days. “At first, they can die pretty easily, so I check on them all the time. If thunder happens, they’ll all run into the same corner and trample each other… If the temperature drops all of a sudden, they can die. Sometimes they just randomly fall over and can’t figure out how to get up. Also, if one gets hurt, the others will just turn on it, so you have to separate them out quickly. It’s really, really tough,” Arizmendi says. “Sometimes, you just get a bad hatch,” adds Audis, reflecting on her decades of hatching eggs for herself and crossing her fingers for the eggs in her brooder.
The overall method of raising turkeys is similar across breeds. Feed is a blend of grains and legumes, distinguished by its protein content. Audis swears by the addition of whole garlic cloves and oregano to her flocks’ water for its ability to eliminate water-borne irritants that can bother the eyes and beaks of the birds. “I also give them sunflower seeds the last couple of weeks before harvest,” she says. “They love it, plus it gives them this extra layer of flavor when you roast them.”
Both Audis and Arizmendi keep their birds in pens that have plenty of room and access to shade and ventilation. The heritage birds require a ceiling that prevents them from flying out during the day. “Before I gave them the full enclosure, I’d find them all over the place, like my roof, on trucks, in trees. And that’s dangerous… we’ve got all kinds of predators out here like coyotes and mountain lions,” Audis notes, pointing to layers of metal grating devoted to the variety of attack points. Arizmendi’s top-heavy flock only needs full enclosure at night since they are unfit flyers.
Once the birds are full size, they are brought to the certified processing facility on Arizmendi’s farm. The tidy building handles small to Thanksgiving-scale harvests. Imagining the Herculean effort it takes to pull off harvesting a few hundred birds at a time gives Arizmendi visible pause. “Those days are intense,” he says with equal parts exhaustion and excitement. The bulk is sold to vendors in the Phoenix area, while the rest go to Prescott Farmers Market.
Judging by their beaming smiles and enthusiastic tales, raising turkeys is a delightful venture—even though poults seem to be born with a death wish, flocks are lightly cannibalistic, giant feathered dinosaurs can be intimidating, and it is tough to get a price per pound or per egg that covers the cost of production. For Audis and Arizmendi, it is not about the money, the fame, or taking the easy route. It’s about flavor, good work, and joy.
If you are wondering, “Should I raise turkeys in my backyard?” consider a few factors. Turkeys are social creatures and should not be raised solo. Each requires more space than chickens, so a large protected area is necessary. Though toms do not crow like roosters, all turkeys make noises—including giggling.
That said, turkeys are known for their prowess at reducing insects, provide fabulous manure for composting, and are endlessly entertaining with their gobbles, giggles, and snoods. Plus, you would be participating in a centuries-old practice that began on this very soil. No, it will not be cheap. It probably won’t be easy. But it will (probably) be worth it. Otherwise, consider supporting your local turkey farmers.
Ridgeview is a regular vendor at the Prescott Farmers Market, where they sell eggs and meat from chickens, turkeys, and ducks.
