MANCELONA -- Turkey time is right around the corner and the U.S. department of agriculture estimates that more than 46 million turkeys will hit the tables of Americans on Thanksgiving Day.
For James, his wife Annalyn and their 3-year-old son EJ, it’s a family affair.
A Mancelona turkey farm lineage that dates back decades to his father before he officially took over Biehl’s turkey farm in 1980.
James said he didn’t expect to be here this long but life had other plans.
“The customer appreciation for what we do. You know, we get compliments every year, they say keep doing it, don’t ever stop,” said James.
The preparation for the next Thanksgiving starts immediately after the previous season ends.
Orders for birds are placed nearly a year in advance.
When the time nears, a drive to Indiana to pick up the birds kicks off the season.
With more than 3,000 turkey pre-orders to process it’s not easy, the week of thanksgiving requires 40 additional workers to help process orders.
“We’ll go in and we’ll process them and we’ll pluck the feathers and clean the insides and put them in chilling tanks and then the next morning at 6 am another crew will come in and they will get the birds out of the tanks and we’ll bag them, box them and run them into the cooler,” said James.
Managing high volumes of birds can be difficult, keeping the turkeys healthy is their top priority.
The turkeys live in an indoor barn to shield them from damp weather...in dry conditions they roam freely.
Fortunately, the family farm has not endured an incidents of bird flu.
“I think because we get hem so late in the season a lot of the birds that probably carry or are gone and because of the cold weather you don’t get as much of the bacteria transferred,” said James.
We’re told Biehl’s birds are all natural without any additives and a special diet that they say makes them a cut above the rest.
“We never vaccinate ours, we just have a natural turkey and we don’t use antibiotics and we have GMO free feed and we keep a really health bird and our customers like it,” said James.
Biehl’s farm also keeps up with routine inspections from the state to guarantee a product customers gobble down.