From biggest to smallest, Pounds' Turkey Farm has seen birds of all sizes

Pounds’ Turkey Farm has been putting birds on holiday dinner tables in Western Pennsylvania for more than 80 years.

That’s a lot of turkeys and plenty of time for the crew at Pounds’ to hear and see just about everything, from people looking for the best looking turkey for prime-time TV to others searching for the elusive all-white meat turkey.

People want the largest turkeys, the smallest turkeys and the turkeys that are just the right size for their roasters.

Tribune-Review reporter Madasyn Czebiniak visited Pounds’ Turkey Farm in Allegheny Township last week to learn more.

Watch her video to see what it takes to raise a turkey from farm to table.

Pounds’ raises between 10,000 and 11,000 turkeys per year.

About 8,000 are sold at Thanksgiving in a mix of fresh and frozen birds. Roughly 1,500 are sold for Christmas.

The farm already sold out of fresh and frozen birds for Thanksgiving. People can call to see if the farm has any extras of both next week. It will start taking Christmas orders Dec. 1.

Office manager Beverly Pounds said people should call early next year if they want to get a Thanksgiving turkey. The farm starts taking orders for Thanksgiving birds on Oct. 1.

In the meantime, enjoy some of the more odd requests the crew at Pounds’ has handled over the years.

I’m too sexy

A news team from a sports network once came to the farm in search of its “sexiest turkey.”

Beverly Pounds said the Steelers were playing on Thanksgiving, and the network wanted to do a commercial with the best-looking bird.

“I did my best,” she said. “I’m not sure what they were looking for.”

She and the news crew went out to the coops, and she gave them free reign of the hens.

“At least they’re sexy to the toms,” Pounds said of the
hens. “That was probably the oddest request.”

Turkey trots

Some people want to bring live turkeys home or to events.

The farm always says no.

“Probably two people call a year who want a live turkey, who want to take it out to the bar or want take it home for their grandchildren to see, and they’ll bring it back the next day,” Pounds said. “I’m like, ‘no.’

“The only way we’re taking them out of here is in a bag.”

There also have been people who have said they want to process the turkeys themselves.

Pounds said the farm doesn’t take chances because it doesn’t know what people might end up doing to the turkeys.

“We take good care of them,” Pounds said.

All white meat

Pounds said there have been people who have inquired about getting “all-white meat turkeys” — thinking that if all the turkey’s feathers are white, the meat will be, too.

Such turkeys don’t exist.

Size matters

There are also people who want the farm’s largest and smallest turkeys. With only one largest and one smallest bird raised each year, those chosen turkeys are a hot commodity.

Pounds said the largest turkey the farm ever had was between 44 and 46 pounds. This year’s largest bird as of last Thursday was 35 pounds.

The smallest turkey that the farm has ever sold was around 9 pounds.

Pounds said the farm is not personally fond of selling such small birds. The smallest that it likes to sell are usually around 12 pounds.

“You need some plumpness to make it taste good,” she said.

Sock it to me

A man once called in and asked the farm for a “turkey in a sock.”

After some questioning, Pounds said the man was asking for the farm’s turkey roast, which is a boneless breast with a netting around it to hold it together.

“When he was little, his mother always said they were having a ‘turkey in a sock,’ so he thought that was what it’s officially called,” she said. “As a grown-up, he called, and that’s what he ordered.”

Can you measure up?

Pounds said people often want to know if a turkey will fit in their roaster; some will bring their roasters with them when they come to pick up a turkey to measure it.

“That always makes the crowd sort of smile around them as they see them trying (to measure it),” Pounds said.

Madasyn Czebiniak is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Madasyn at 724-226-4702, mczebiniak@tribweb.com, or via Twitter @maddyczebstrib.