In some households, every day is turkey day
Updated: 2007-11-23 10:07
It is one thing for the president of the United States to pardon a pair of turkeys every year and then send them off to live out their days in Florida. It's quite another to save a turkey from the Thanksgiving table by inviting it to live with you.
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Two weeks ago, Karen Oeh and her husband, Mike Balistreri, who live not far from Santa Cruz, Calif., adopted two turkeys that had been rescued after an airline shipping misfortune in Las Vegas.
"I am like a new parent," said Ms. Oeh, 39. "I instantly, totally fell in love, and now I just want to stay home with them."
Ms. Oeh and Mr. Balistreri will not be among the 92 percent of Americans who will eat turkey today, as estimated by the National Turkey Federation, a trade group. Instead, they have given the birds a softer, easier path that bypasses the oven and leads to the backyard.
"It makes me feel better about Thanksgiving, which is already a depressing day for me," said Ms. Oeh, a college adviser, archaeology teacher and vegetarian who will enjoy meatless lasagna today.
Adopting turkeys, which can weigh more than 40 pounds and have a penchant for pecking, is not like adopting a kitten or a puppy. Although some owners report that their turkeys are sweet and like to be petted, the birds can try even the most dedicated animal lover's patience. For instance, they molt. And then there are the abundant droppings.
"They are not the neatest of birds," said Marcia Lane, 75, a former television actress who adopted her first turkey in 2004. She currently keeps three in a fenced-in piece of pasture behind her home in Columbus, Miss.
In the beginning, Ms. Lane's turkeys seemed friendly enough. She named them for characters from "The Mikado." She would even sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes to them. But turkeys, like some children, can be fickle.
"All of the sudden one, for no reason, they will turn on you and decide they don't like you anymore and peck you," she said. "I had one that would just fly at you, and I would have to carry a rake to protect myself."
An organization called Farm Sanctuary delivered the turkeys to Ms. Lane and Ms. Oeh. The group, dedicated to scooping up commercial farm animals raised in dirty, crowded conditions, began placing turkeys in friendly homes soon after its founding, in 1986. A growing number of other animal rights groups are now in the adoption business as well.
This holiday season, Farm Sanctuary, which tends to its animals on land in upstate New York and Northern California and has a $5.7 million budget, has 38 turkeys waiting to be adopted, said Tricia Barry, the sanctuary's communications director.
From 25 to 50 turkeys a year are placed with adoptive families, said Lorri Bauston, who helped start Farm Sanctuary and now runs her own farm shelter called Animal Acres, a 45-minute drive from downtown Hollywood.
Ms. Bauston has five grown turkeys at the moment. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the Democratic presidential candidate and vegan, showed up last week and fed them stuffed squash, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Ms. Bauston's birds are all too old for adoption, but when she gets a suitable one, it will go to the actress Daryl Hannah, who is making her property in Malibu poultry-ready.
Not just anyone can adopt a turkey. There are site visits and income reviews. Sheds must be built, and veterinarians secured. And then there is the deal-breaker: the family must be vegetarian.
Most of the 30 farm-animal shelters that have popped up in recent years get turkeys from law enforcement agencies, from animal welfare societies and from ranchers or processors with sick or injured birds. Some just show up under the cover of night, their origins unknown. Not all of them place their birds for adoption.
The turkeys adopted by the couple near Santa Cruz came from a Northwest plane that was carrying several thousand baby turkeys, called poults, from a breeder in Canada to a rancher in California this July. The plane was delayed for hours in Las Vegas. Many poults died, whether of the heat or suffocation, but some were saved by animal rights activists.
For May and Flower, the two turkeys that received a presidential pardon Tuesday, the adoption rules are less strict and the circumstances more glamorous.
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