PSU poultry club counts on nest eggs to fund annual trip

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Chris Rosenblum

UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State Poultry Science Club members appreciated everyone who came to their annual Thanksgiving turkey sale, but they were especially thankful for Todd May.

May drove from southern Bedford County to buy 60 fresh turkeys — half a ton of meat costing about $1,400.

CDT/Christopher Weddle

Todd May, of Buffalo Mills, loads a pickup truck full of 60 turkeys during the Penn State Poultry Science Club's annual fresh turkey sale on Monday, November 23, 2009. CDT/Christopher Weddle

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They weren’t for some mammoth spread. May’s son, Jonathan, is a former club member now working in Richmond, Va. His company gives the turkeys to employees as holiday gifts.

So on Monday, students dumped bins of ice on the turkeys piled in the back of Todd May’s pickup. Over the odd mountain went a tarp, and everything was ready for the long drive to Virginia.

Of course, buying Richmond turkeys would be easier. But then, the younger May couldn’t stay loyal to his old club.

“It’s a way that helps out,” Todd May said.

Many a local feast today will support the club, perennially judged one of the best collegiate clubs in the country at the International Poultry Expo in Atlanta. Each fall, club members finance their annual trip to the expo by helping raise turkey chicks, from the time they’re a day old, at Penn State’s Poultry Education Research Center.

Students living at the center

feed and weigh the turkeys, which serve as commercial research subjects. Studies of this year’s flock of 481 birds, for example, evaluated different watering systems and beddings.

But the club’s main contribution comes at the end. The weekend before Thanksgiving, everyone — this year about 25 students — spends long hours at the center slaughtering, cleaning, plucking, chilling and packaging the turkeys in vacuum-sealed plastic wrap.

“We do everything by hand,” said Jacob Haagen, club vice president.

It’s tough work, but an important part of their education.

“It teaches them where their food comes from,” said professor Robert Elkin, head of the university’s poultry sciences department.

For some, the experience satisfies animal science course requirements. Mostly, however, it goes beyond the classroom — hands-on training, literally.

“You learn a lot about turkeys,” club President Hannah Atkins said.

Before stepping into the processing lab this weekend, she already knew this semester’s birds well. She liked how they watched, gobbling, while she dispensed their usual fare, corn and soybean meal without hormones or injections. Sometimes, when she talked to them, they craned their heads in curiosity.

But processing one bird, she made an exciting discovery — a rare abnormality. She wasn’t alone in having only read about the fluid-filled sac wrapped around the heart.

“Lots of kids hadn’t seen that before,” she said.

Anatomy lessons aside, the time teaches the students to work together as a team, said Phillip Clauer, a poultry science instructor who advises the club along with Dirk Wise, the center’s manager.

“It’s really neat,” Haagen said. “This is one of the activities that our club does that brings us together.”

By noon Monday, the beginning of the three-day sale, the turkeys filled racks in a walk-in cooler, spotless in their shiny packaging.

Not included were the few dozen giant toms already claimed by The Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel and Nittany Lion Inn, or the half-dozen given to a pair of local churches.

The rest of the turkeys, weighing from 7.5 to about 21 pounds at $1.25 a pound, were for the public on a first-come basis.

And the earlybirds got their choice of birds.

A half-hour before the official opening, the first customers arrived. Club members shrugged, started selling, and the rush was on. Within an hour, the line backed out the door.

It was the typical start toward raising $7,000 to $9,000 for the trip to Atlanta, where students learn about the poultry industry’s latest products and techniques, hang out with peers and meet potential employers. Funds also provide for other field trips and community service projects.

Clauer said 80 percent of the turkeys sell in the first two hours.

“Everybody’s got to get here to get that perfect size,” he said.

Behind a table perched club member Allison Bardella, taking requests as hundreds of research hens and roosters clucked and crowed from the room next door. Each time, she consulted a chart of available turkeys, listed by weight and given a number based on the order they were weighed. If she called out No. 290 and it was still left, Atkins or Haagen fetched it from the cooler.

Those carrying bagged turkeys back to their cars sounded happy with their purchases.

“It’s a really good cause, supporting the students whose future depends on this,” said Andrea Hoffman, a first-time buyer from Half-moon Township.

Patty Gruneberg, of Boalsburg, showed up for the second year. She’s no stranger to poultry, with her teenage son interested in raising backyard chickens.

“I like the idea of knowing where my turkey came from,” she said.

So does Amy Hayworth, of Ferguson Township. She also buys meat and mushrooms from the university.

“I like to support local food and Penn State,” she said. “I figure if (my turkey) is grown here, that’s better than having something that’s been shipped from far away.”

Penn State’s Robert Elkin said the annual turkeys, like all the center’s research poultry, are raised in healthy conditions, according to strict, university-monitored standards. They’re also killed humanely, he said.

That’s not why Kathy Taylor, of Unionville, returns every year. She and others around her holiday table love the turkeys’ taste.

“All my kids come and say, ‘This had better be a Penn State bird,’ ” she said. “And I say, ‘Yes, it is.’ ”

Chris Rosenblum can be reached at 231-4620.