THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 9, 1996 TAG: 9606070238
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Coastal Journal
SOURCE: Mary Reid Barrow
LENGTH: 88 lines
When Virginia Beach's 1996 Man of the Year in Agriculture, David Flanagan, talks turkey, he's talking about a whole lot of birds.
This week Flanagan and his wife Susan were tending to hundreds of them. The couple had just returned from a North Carolina hatchery where they had picked up 1,110 baby turkeys to bring back for themselves and others who raise turkeys here. The little poults, as baby turkeys are called, rode in shipping boxes in the back of the Flanagans' van.
``With more than 1,000 turkeys riding back with you, with them talking to you, it's kind of fun.'' Flanagan said.
The yellow poults, peeping and pecking all the while, were born at the hatchery during the night. By the time, they got to Virginia Beach the next day, they were energetic, ready to get out of their crates and into warm brooder houses where they could run around and begin to eat and drink.
Late that afternoon farmers and Virginia Beach 4-Her's began dropping by to pick up the birds they had ordered through Flanagan. When all was said and done, 400 of the youngsters remained at the Flanagan farm, the largest turkey farm in Virginia Beach.
Before the Flanagans left for North Carolina, they had prepared the brooder house in the turkey yard with fresh bedding on the floor. Water bottles were topped off and little trays were filled with starter feed.
Susan Flanagan also had boiled and chopped eggs to sprinkle on top of the feed. Boiled eggs was something her mother had always given to newborn turkeys and she does it, too. With no mama turkey to follow around, the youngsters need an incentive to start eating, she explained.
``They love that,'' Susan Flanagan said. ``It teaches them to eat their feed and gives them a good start.''
The first few weeks are crucial. Baby turkeys have to eat well and be kept warm and out of the rain. If they get chilled, they can easily die. A large warming light with hood is in the center of the brooder house and the chicks gather under the hood to stay warm.
The brooder house is a quaint red shingled building in the turkey yard. The little poults, huddled under the brooder light now, will live like real turkeys as they grow up. They will be outside, pecking around in the ground by day and roosting up on old fashioned wooden turkey roost by night. Some say the outdoor life is what makes them so tasty in comparison to a frozen, grocery-store turkey.
One of the Flanagans' good Princess Anne turkeys at Thanksgiving or Christmas has been a holiday tradition for many Virginia Beach families for years and raising turkeys has been a Flanagan family tradition since the early 1900s. Then plump juicy Princess Anne turkeys were so well known, they featured on restaurant menus across Hampton Roads.
Before the holidays, the Flanagans host tours of school children who come to learn about raising the big birds. That's the time of the year when the tiny yellow poults have transformed into big white turkeys and live up to their variety name, Nicholas broad-breasted hens.
The Flanagans just call them the ``girls.'' Although an occasional gobbler slips in, they aim to raise mainly female turkeys because males usually grow too big by the holidays to fit in a home oven.
Although Flanagan turkeys are an institution in Virginia Beach, David Flanagan also does other farming. One of his crops is sweet potatoes, a perfect holiday companion for turkeys.
Flanagan grows 12 to 13 acre of good Pungo sweet potatoes and sells them to individuals who stop by the farm and also to local super markets and to a North Carolina cannery. This time of year, Flanagan also sells sweet potato plants.
``We enjoy it all, `` he said, ``but killing those turkeys is a job. We have to ask so many people to help. And digging sweet potatoes . . . That's a job too.''
In addition to turkeys and sweet potatoes, Flanagan raises close to 175 acres of wheat, corn and soybeans. ``I'm a small farmer,'' he said. ``Compared to some of the big ones, I'm nothing but a gardener.''
But big when it comes to turkeys.
P.S. Music from the colonial period to the present by vocalist Roger Schoonover will be featured at a program at 2 p.m. today at historic Lynnhaven House. Tickets are $4 and include a tour of the house and a reception following the program. Call 456-0351 or 481-2145.
AN EVENING OF PATRIOTIC MUSIC by the Navy Atlantic Fleet Band will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday on the lawn of the Francis Land House. Bring a lawn chair and join the pre-flag day celebration which is free and open to the public. Call 431-4000. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by MARY REID BARROW
David Flanagan and his wife Susan brought back 1,110 baby turkeys -
called poults - from a North Carolina hatchery in shipping boxes in
the back of their van. ``With more than 1,000 turkeys riding back
with you, with them talking to you, it's kind of fun.'' Flanagan
said. by CNB