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By Harriett Odiorne

(reprinted as submitted from Johnson City Record Courier)

Whittier immortalized the “Barefoot Boy” in such a way that nay country reared child can feel the sun once again on his peeling nose or taste the wild fruit’s tangy zip on his tongue, but remembering the stealthy steps taken in following the turkey hen to her nest is reserved to rather few.

Since the Indians introduced the Pilgrim Fathers to the savory goodness of turkey, the bird, in domesticated form, has been a tradition in the American way of life. When civilization ended the day that it was available from the wilderness, it was raised for home use on most family farms.

This fact held true in the early days of our section of the hill country. The growth of the population centers encouraged the commercial production of the turkey in the areas close by. This demand coupled with the desire for diversification on the not-so-productive farms and ranches of the Johnson City area was the stimulus for the commercial turkey business. Raising turkeys today is an exacting science but most any turkey-raiser will tell you very quickly, “That ain’t the way we usta do it.”

The warm, balmy days of spring brought fresh green shoots and a myriad of insects on which the turkeys feasted and thus the time of egg-laying came. A turkey was still enough of a wild bird that she would find a secluded place in a thicket of brush pile and build a nest and as the bunch would feed through the pasture she would slip away, lay her egg and return. By close observation one could guess very near to when the egg-laying would begin so for some days preceding this turkeys were fed in a pen and kept shut up until mid-morning or after lunch.

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When the turkeys were turned out mama and the children who were not in school began the watch. Story books or school books (if mama happened to be teaching a school-age child; this was not unusual because of the distance for the smaller child to walk) and a water jug and perhaps a few biscuits generously spread with butter and jelly were taken along. If mama was not along, the reading material was not allowed as no child could ever keep his eyes on both the story and the hen.

Usually the hens were anxious enough to start feeding. That little mind was given the watchers but as the home stand was left further behind, care had to be taken not to be seen by the birds. Did someone wonder how the discipline of ‘children should be seen and not heard’ was learned? You could neither be seen nor heard by the hen, yet it was essential to keep the bunch in view and watch as each hen appeared to be aimlessly feeding through the underbrush. Sometimes the watch would go on for an hour, sometimes, two, but eventually one of the hens would gradually wander farther and farther from the bunch.

The careful, oh so careful watching really started then because if the hen suspected that she was being followed she would either return to the bunch or just simply do a disappearing act, stealing away to her nest. The time was lost and the whole procedure would have to be repeated the next day… and the next… and the next, until the nest was found. Each hen had a name: Long Tail, Big Bobby, Reddy, Blacky or whatever name was selected to fit that particular hen. And when the one nest was found the same procedure was repeated until each hen’s nest was found.

A hen usually laid between twelve to fourteen eggs before beginning to set. What a pleasant time it was when , just before sundown, you scrubbed your hands, put a clean cloth in a bucket and made rounds to each nest to pick up the eggs. These were carefully carried home, stored in boxes partially filled with sand and placed in the coolest place possible and turned each day.

At brooding time the hens were put in individual coops near the house but now and again the hen had her own opinion and the coop had to be taken to the site of the nest, varmint proofed, and a trip made each evening to close it securely and each morning to open it so the hen could feed and water.

One would think that such a tedious way of producing that Thanksgiving bird would drastically limit the numbers but the Sandy area, in particular, with its bumper crops of grasshoppers, was especially suited to the growing of turkeys that it became very important to the community. Until this time cattle were usually driven to market or to a railway terminal. So it was when turkey numbers increased, that M. B. Maddox and Alvie Kennedy, who were operating the Sand Store, bunched the turkeys and they were driven to Marble Falls for shipment. Drayton Smith, among many others, was one of the drovers and after the initial start things were fairly peaceful until the bridge was reached and Turkey Bird decided that man might use that method of crossing the river but not him. Eventually someone came up with the idea of using net wire to hold and force them on the bridge and it worked.

Withers and Spaulding in Johnson City had holding pens on Town Creek, just west of the present Tony’s Garage and from there they were driven to Tom Miller Produce in Austin. The loss of weight, and poor condition upon arrival brought this method of delivery to a quick end. It was not long until trucking became the practical way of transportation.

In the Sandy area, the Smiths, Stevensons, Stewarts and Kents and many others were well known for their commercial flocks of turkeys but in the Johnson City area the ushering in of a more sophisticated method of raising them was done by the Lee Greens, followed by Barry and Wilma Fawcett. It caught on like wildfire and soon the Criders and the Stevensons joined the Kents in the hatchery business and there were poults of all: the Lindigs, Sultemeiers and Meiers along with many, many more: some still receiving as many as 20,000 poults at one time – a far cry from following that turkey hen to her nest.