u 





By Law 

 Reisner, 



Field 



. Editor, 



Illinois 



Agricultural 



Association 



RECORD 



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 con- 

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FAR as the eye can see, turkeys fan out over the 50 acre 

 alfalfa range on the Wenzel farm near Kirkland in 

 DeKalb county. Majestic busybodies with plumages 

 of royal purple and voices like saucy court jesters, 

 these fine birds live a short, pampered life destined to 

 grace some lucky family's Qiristmas dinner table. 



The holidays are harvest time for Harvey and Earl 

 Wenzel, long-time Farm Bureau members who raised 

 18,000 turkeys this year. Fifteen years ago their farm 

 was devoted to four-legged stock. Turkey raising for the 

 Wenzels is now a $100,000 a year business. 



When you sit down to that big turkey dinner com- 

 plete with fixin's, just be thankful there are men around 

 who know turkey raising like the Wenzels. Because before 

 you can relish that tasty bird there's a lot of work, expense, 

 and worry. Turkeys, it should be remembered, often act 

 in ways beholden not to their keepers. 



"You can never be sure," Earl Wenzel said recently 

 in the sober way of the experienced. "Something pan- 

 icked our neighbor's flock one night and they flattened 20 

 rods of fence in their fright. " Turkeys also are panicked 

 by airplanes which they take for hawks, their natural 

 enemy. 



But the Wenzels will caution not to sell the bird 

 short on intelligence which they say is higher than most 

 other fowl. "They balance their own ration almost com- 

 pletely. They always face into the wind, and keep a sharp 

 wild-animal lookout for danger from above." 



The Wenzel brothers didn't jump into turkey raising 

 all at once and they wouldn't advise anyone else to plunge 

 either. 



"Last year," Earl said, "turkey raisers who had to buy 

 much of their feed just about lost their shirts. The market 

 is full of pitfalls." 



The brothers started out modestly in the early thirties 



Headliae illustration shows a jew of the 18.000 turkeys grown on 

 the Wenzel brothers farm near Kirkland in DeKalb county. 



when Harvey finished engineering school and came back 

 to the farm. The two brothers formed a partnership. In 

 1936 they sold 300 birds, jumped to 1000 in 1937, and by 

 1939, a good year, were well into the business. 



This year, with their whopping crop of 18,000 birds, 

 their biggest year, the Wenzels had invested in feed, labor, 

 and upkeep at least $100,000 before they sold a single 

 bird. They have no other stock on the farm, except the 

 gobblers. 



The reason for this big feed and labor bill is easy to 

 find. It takes from five to six men to handle the gobblers 

 and do the field work, and a night man to watch over the 

 birds. 



And turkeys aren't exactly dainty eaters. Here's what 

 they will consume from March to December: 25 tons of 

 breeder mash (for the breeder stock), 1500 tons of grow- 

 ing mash, 10,000 bushels of oats, 16,000 bushels of com 

 plus 75 acres of alfalfa range. 



In all. it takes 80-100 pounds of feed to mature a 20 

 pound turkey. At present prices Wenzels have from $6 to 

 $7 invested in each bird. 



The Wenzels champion their own mixture of growing 

 mash which they believe gives their birds a special flavor. 

 It is very heavy with soybean oil meal, which the U.S. De- 

 partment of Agriculture says has a very favorable effect 

 on turkey meat. For each 1000 pounds of mash they use 

 300 pounds of soy oil meal. 



Incidentally, Earl Wenzel, somewhat a student on mar- 

 keting, thinks that because of the record-breaking pre- 

 Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving marketing, the Christmas 

 turkey may be hard to buy and high in price. Earl is a 



■■■'■/'■. {Continued on page 26) 



DECEMBER. 1947 



