Calling time on turkeys

“I started with seven hens and one gobbler when I was twelve and a half years old,” the now 65-year-old told Rural News on a recent visit to his Mid Canterbury farm.

“That first year I sold 100 turkeys and made a profit of 50 pounds. In those days that was huge money.”

It was the start of a career which from the age of 21 also involved his wife to be, Judith.

“It was only when Judith arrived that I started doing things properly,” he admits.

As a young man he dreamt of building production to a million birds – “I had it all worked out how many sheds I would need” – but the reality of limited demand from New Zealand’s small population meant output peaked at 70,000, about 20% of New Zealand’s estimated 350,000 birds/year consumption.

“That consumption’s a bit of a guess as nobody really knows but it hasn’t changed much in 20 years.”

These days they do about 20,000/year, though they have the capacity to hatch a lot more, having installed an incubator capable of doing 300,000 when Tegel, the largest supplier, dropped out of the market for two years.

“But then Tegel came back in, bought out another supplier, and in a short time they were back to producing as many as they were before.”

Crozier’s response to what was some fierce competition at the time was to drop out of the supermarkets and focus on butchers shops and other smaller outlets.

“It’s probably the best decision we ever made.”

The trend among some to seek healthier foods hasn’t markedly increased demand for their free-range product but it has made selling them easier, they say.

“These days the phone goes and we take the order, and we get a lot more phone calls from people wanting to know more about how our birds are reared,” notes Judith.

The answer to that rearing question is outside from about five weeks after hatching, grazing on cereal crops with an ad-lib home-made ration of meal.

“We make four grower mixes and go through about 2.5t/day,” explains Philip. “It was making our own feed that really put us on the map.”

By about 12 weeks of age, in February, the first batches of poults are ready and three days/week they’re processed in Crozier’s purpose-built plant on the edge of Ashburton.

Killing runs through to June with everything frozen, mostly as whole birds for the Christmas market.

Judith says it is feasible to produce fresh birds in December, but hens have to be indoors with light manipulated to make them lay out of season, and chicks pushed from the outset to reach target weights. It doesn’t fit their free-range ethos.

“Spring is the natural season for them to start laying.”

Typically that’s late September and a first “row” of eggs – about 1200 of them – goes in the incubator at the start of October.

“It’s not been used for nine months so if anything goes wrong with that first batch it’s not a disaster,” notes Philip.

Twice as many go in the incubator for the second hatch, and three rows per hatch after that until they reach their target number of poults for the season.

From one batch of poults they select the best males – gobblers – to grow on to higher weights before making a final pick of 30 for the following season’s breeding.

About 700 hens are selected in a similar way, but from a different batch.

“The traditional ratio was seven gobblers per hundred hens with natural mating but with AI we only need about 30.”

No new genetics are imported.

“We’ve been line breeding our own birds for a long time now. We tend to think of them as just turkeys but they’re probably hardier than we think as every year we’re selecting the best performers in our outdoor system.”

Hens are inseminated twice in each laying cycle to maximise the number of fertile eggs, and hence  poults hatched.

Hens will lay a second and third year but egg production tails off while the birds become heavier so it’s not commercial to keep them after their first season’s lay.

“We do have a sale of turkey dams. Some people particularly like them because they’re half the price and twice the flavour. You just have to cook them a bit slower and they’re beautiful. It’s a bit like the difference between mutton or hogget and lamb.”

The Crozier’s farm is 34ha. The turkeys are stocked at about 1200/ha in flocks of 2000 with paddocks subdivided accordingly. Triticale is sown then laneways cut through it for the birds and shelters.

“They knock down about an acre of the crop but we can head the rest.”

Yields are modest but so are inputs: no fertiliser’s necessary as the turkey’s leave plenty of “nutrient” behind as dung.

Once the turkeys are gone a winter feed crop for lambs or cattle is sown, or a cereal for the following season. Sometimes spring cereals are undersown with grass which comes away when the crop’s harvested and the turkeys are gone.

The dry mid Canterbury climate helps keep the birds healthy but Philip keeps a close eye “to nip any disease in the bud” when they have a lot of birds on the ground.

The couple hope they can sell the farm and business, including stock and processing site in Ashburton, as a going concern and will be available to advise the new owners on the operation for their first year, if required.

Real estate agent Matson & Allan says “rarely does a property and business like this come available.”