Two Turkey Producers Have Some Unusual Problems in Gaston County, 1946

By F. H. Jeter, Editor, Agricultural Extension Service, N.C. State College, as published in the Charlotte Observer, June 26, 1949

Carl Petty of Bowling Green, one of Gaston County’s successful turkey growers, doesn’t think much of springtime cyclones and hail storms. The other evening, just before supper, Mr. Petty was doing some work out next to his barn. He heard the wind growling and looked up in time to see a funnel-shaped cloud coming towards his farm.

“I didn’t pay much attention to it,” Carl said, “because we had never had a cyclone to hit our farm. I went on into the house and as I did, I heard the clatter of boards over towards my brother’s farm not so far away. I told my wife that maybe he had had some damage from the wind.”

In a few minutes, however, a neighbor came to the Petty home to use the telephone. He casually asked Mr. Petty where his new brooder house was. That stopped the supper right there. The family left the table, rushed out in the yard, and found the new brooder house about 30 feet from where it should be. It was turned over on its top and the pines around it had scars on them up to about 40 feet from the ground. Evidently, the house had been blown along against those pines before coming to its final resting place. The old brooder house, standing about 20 feet from the other one, was not touched. And the new wire racks for the new house had not been hurt in any way.

However, Mr. Petty had to tear his brooder house apart and rebuild it. He had to go to double expense, therefore, in getting the house ready for his turkey poults this season. The house, as finally completed, is 18 feet wide by 100 feet long. It is equipped with a three-foot service alley in the rear and has a good roof, a wire floor, with wire and building paper at the sides. Mr. Petty will sheath in the sides with timber after he sells a crop or two of fat turkeys. He believes in making the birds pay their own way, however. The new house is equipped with a comfortable sun porch all along the front. Mr. Petty says, so far as he knows, his cyclone was entirely a private affair. It did no other damage in the whole community. The boards which he thought were rattling on his brother’s farm were actually those form his own brooder house. “I was really surprised,” he said.

Lee Herrick, Extension turkey specialist, says that Gaston County produced 22,000 fat turkeys, largely for the local trade, last year. This was a 100 percent increase over 1948, and it appears that the growers will jump their production again 25 percent this year over last. In other words, Gaston will market about 27,000 fat turkeys this fall. The flocks range in size from 2,000 to 4,000 birds per farm and, with but one exception, all of these turkeys are being grown by men who started 10 or 15 years ago and have gradually increased the size of their flocks as they learned more about the business.

The one exception is Maurice Youngman of Gastonia, Route 1, out on the York Road. He grew 1,200 birds last year for the first time and has about 3,000 started this year. Mr. Youngman goes over to see Carl Petty and F.T. Dellinger, veteran turkey growers, frequently so as to learn from their experiences.

Mr. Youngman started his turkey business in an old dairy barn on the farm of his father-in-law. He grazed the turkeys all summer on a field of alfalfa he had planted for that purpose. He has moved to his own farm this year and has converted some old out houses into turkey brooder houses until he can get on his feet. Disaster struck one windy night not long ago when one of these old houses, warmed with a kerosene-burning brooder caught fire and burned 800 poults along with all of the equipment in the house. He has built a new house 22 feet wide by 100 feet long and keeps the poults warm and comfortable with bottled gas. He says he can sleep better now. He plans to grow a few late turkeys to make up for the loss of the first 800 started.