A Turkey Farmer | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #367

today's episode is brought to you by liquid death it's that time of year always and you guys have been waiting and we are happy to let you know that the new i'm upstairs merch collection is available now at theovonstore.com the greatest excuse on earth if you need something wish i could help baby but i'm upstairs if you need me you know where i'm at theovonstore.com thank you guys for all your love and support today's guest is the owner of hazard mill farms and he farms roughly 75 000 birds a year getting them out the door and on to the dinner he's a second generation turkey farmer here in the united states of america we're happy to have that bird man with us today turkey farmer robert hupman [Music] i'll sit and tell you my story [Music] just robert huffman we're sitting here with uh the turkey farmer baby this is your time of year really coming up yeah yeah we generally uh it's kind of funny we we get that a lot but uh we're year-round you know so thanksgiving is just another another day for us we're we're pumping turkeys you know 24 7. oh dang man but do people i feel like people like i feel do you wake up on thanksgiving morning and you're like fired up and the kids are all you know you know they're fired up and people are doing like turkey calls like is it that kind of a day for you guys is it how how big of a of this time of year is uh y'all's market share basically uh for for our market share it's probably i don't know maybe i don't know what market share means yeah so so generally we're growing birds year round so if my flock happens to go out before thanksgiving or month before fine if it doesn't um it's probably about i don't know 30 percent of what a true turkey farm goes through because we're pumping out we're selling breast meat for you know lunch meat and other other items that like that so i've had some i mean i don't know if i've had you guys how do i know if i've had you guys as turkey uh most likely if you ever had a deets and watson sliced turkey that'd probably be one of ours damn man thanks yeah i've loved it we sent some stuff out used to when you lived in l.a we said i think this california buys some of our product as well oh good yeah i probably enjoyed it there okay so for just a regular human right i'm a human consumer um what part of the turkey is used for uh like like well i guess let me start here i'm just trying to think of where to start with like a turkey farmer like you want a day in the life of a turkey farmer like start to finish what i go through yeah yeah what's like when you get up in the morning like what does it go like thank you so yeah so i'll wake up i don't know why i'm here no you're good thank you very much i've never been good but that's sweet of you um yeah robert so what is it like so you start in the beginning of the day yeah so normally i wake up 3 30 4 00 a.m do a little paperwork knock some emails out um go through the birds luckily right now i got a full-time farmhand this is the first time ever so i don't have to be up there as much but we're going through them every day you're checking for any type of mortality making sure they all have automatic feeders so there's one feed line that runs continuously down the barn 800 and some feet long so a feeder that runs down the barn that they're all housed in yep they're housed in it's uh they have plenty of room ample mount we you know biosecurity is key so we we dress up suit up go through dip pans make sure nothing comes in from the barn that's not supposed to be in there oh really yeah yeah we're very to the next we do like animal welfare every year you know we're really on top of our game because you know this is our livelihood this is why i feed my kid right with and you know some sometimes commercial farms can they'll call at commercial farms but it's really just a small town guy you know it's a family maybe running a dairy operation maybe running cattle and then they're also substituting some income for other family members for for turkeys okay so i can make the same i make the same amount of money as if i was running maybe 200 hit of cattle okay wow so with the amount of turkeys you're running yes and how many birds you guys uh you know how many birds you guys dealing with over there uh so roughly like 19 000 20 to 22 000 per flop and that's two barns so okay so 19 000 per flock so what does that mean so uh generally we have a flock and it'll last uh 19 weeks as to a full-grown bird and they go to market okay okay and then uh depending how it rotates you know you'll have like four weeks down eight weeks down depending when they're ready to place you with more pulse or more turkeys from the hatchery okay so it starts with you get a batch of turkeys yeah so you have no turkeys at some point yeah yeah so sometimes i'll have a down time for four weeks but we're cleaning turkey [ __ ] okay so just cleaning out the barns yeah yeah so okay so then you get the batch right yep um they come in fresh savings land you know we spread out brand new shavings and they're all shaved out yeah we cleaned them out it's all nice nice clean pretty pretty pretty ground strip club up in there yeah nice nice lights okay so you get them in and they are they scared are they excited what do they seem like they're ready to eat okay so they've done travel got there they're really happy birds they're clucking they've been on the road yeah ready to chill out yeah so we load them in they come in it's nice and warm in there for them because when they're younger they like it up you know around the 80s to 100 depending on the age of the bird okay so you guys have lamps and stuff in there they keep them warm heaters yeah we got propane heaters and uh so they're all in this hat and uh at that point it's you already bought them from a hatchery so they're all in this barn yeah okay so you have them in this barn now how long until those birds until you guys you know you pull that card on them you know and lowered them out and sent them on to the market uh 19 18 and a half to 19 weeks wow so they're and then when they go out they're you know averaging 40 to 45 pounds okay how well the feed conversion okay so and that is you guys are feeding them the whole time how often do you feed them they eat non-stop they have that they have access to water and food the entire time they're like my buddy corey dude and will they eat uh and what are they eating corn it's it's a corn soybean and then sometimes wheat and it's all natural we have our own hatchery so y'all ever go out there and give them a little snack at night is there any kind of a bedtime snack is there anything where you're gonna sneak out there you're feeling in a good mood you're going to go out there and hook them up no there's yeah like me you want moon pie but they're like nah we're good so they just like what they they're real no they really just like that that feed that corn soybean mix i mean that's pretty much it they their water we have a water system i mean they're getting perfect ph every time okay so like we're really really big on their water so it's like a little spa in there they treat you know they got the heat going they got the food coming in they're really living they're living pretty large in there yeah okay curtains go down they get natural light they get to see outside a little bit i mean they're they're they're safe from any type of predators sounds like a detox i went to one time honestly be real honest yeah um now what about this so so so then you go in there on your daily routine you cruise in there the cruise in there you have special you know you got the gear on because you don't want how detrimental is it if you bring in something from the outside world so just for instance you've probably heard of avian flu oh yeah yeah so like back uh 2016 15 and 16 they had a huge outbreak killed a million plus birds nationwide bam which it helped yeah you're talking about it yeah yeah so it you know we didn't luckily hit it and i hate to prosper on you know bad terms for other farmers because i hope we all get our you know rightful do and everybody be is successful um but it helped us out and bumped us up real high and uh uh we did very well not having that avian flu but it's literally if i went outside stepped in some goose crap and that fecal matter was on my shoe if i stepped in that barn with the same clothes i had on with that it would 100 affect the mortality rate no way within like three days damn so they're a real it's a real it's almost like a they sound like almost like a science ex not a science experiment but they're like a real specific recipe if you put in a little bit of something that's not good it's going down yeah and then see like absolutely real sensitive yeah so other birds can affect other birds same like you can't have chickens on a turkey farm saying i can't have turkeys on chicken farm stuff that would mess with a chicken will mess with a turkey oh really and it won't won't seem like the geese that fly you know they're they're just a carrier they don't uh they don't die from the avian flu but they can spread it to other birds and even if say the damn it's like succession have you seen that show that's no no actually i haven't it's like um yeah it's like family members trying to they're just not it's it's not just like that but it's similar yeah it's just like you know do the same breed you think everybody be looking out for each other you know if goose is gonna fly by and get your intel or something drop a note but instead yeah it's a family right here the front guy almost looks like he got a little gobble on him but they uh they're all like rich people and they're all like backstabbing but they're all the same breed i did see the first season now that you said that yeah i gotta i i've just seen a little bit but i gotta see some more but um anyway so this is really cool so so now you go in there you guys are kind of like you you you're careful what you bring into the barn yep and you get in there it's it's the early morning and then what are you guys doing at that point so we're going through making sure you know none of the water lines are broke there's no water leaks the feeds all properly distributing through the lines okay occasionally you'll have a mortality one bird might just croak from what could have been anything just anything heart liver you know just sometimes you just you know you have so many birds in there well not so many but you'll have birds in there and they just you know just like human life man out here though no different if you were raising four outside in the field you know oh you could be jogging with your buddy just drop yeah yeah same thing with those dude tom just dropped tom number two he's like bro what's up i ain't never saying something lose something man and you don't know what's going on they might have small beef going on in there they you know occasion they do fight you know they'll occasionally rough up each other you gotta break them up will they yeah yeah dude like no nonsense keith peterson maybe you got to get in there like her um okay so now you got the farm going everything's going pretty swell yeah at what point do you guys start to get them ready for the slaughter basically what do you call it the uh just uh just harvest okay just kind of like uh same as if you're harvesting corn just for getting ready to uh it's uh i don't know just going out or whatever birds go out that's kind of what we okay we're going they're going out we're we got a group coming in we got a group going out yeah so it's a nice way to say it they say it at senior homes too a lot of times you know you know don is going out yeah you know we got a question that came in right here for you robert yep what up theo turkey farmer how you doing yeah i got a little question for you uh so i assume you're uh taking these turkeys in and you know you gotta kill em for meat you know are you the one who's doing these killings how do you go do you just chop its head off how do you go about this is it peaceful is a long process and uh do you ever uh develop some sort of relationship with a certain turkey maybe he does like a little dance or something that you think is funny and something unique about him that you don't want to let him go you don't want to send him off to some family for dinner so uh yeah have you ever kept one of these turkeys for a prolonged period of time and that's about it that'll do it right there for me theo peace out gang brother i hope the guy's clothed but he might not be you know that's the world we live in man it's just you know it is turkey farmer you're interviewing that's a good point yeah yeah i did it i'd send in some i'd be naked too if i'm talking to a bird man dude i'm bringing my bird you know um so there you go that's a nice question what would you say to that like when it comes time to shut them down right because you've got to do it it's got to be done it's part of it so so that's another aspect of the the farm throughout there's birds that that need to be cold um either they get a broken wing broken legs something happens they twist their stuff up you just gotta euthanize them you know immediately because yeah we don't want no bird to suffer while they're there we don't if they can't get food water and they can't properly move we just go ahead and take them out because what happens if a bird's in there if a bird's in there and he can't move then what's going on the other birds will kill them no way yeah but then we don't we don't let that happen so and why do they do it what's going on in there do you have any intel it's just turkeys being turkeys man in the real world man they don't care they're yeah it's like damn sinaloa yeah so that's why i was telling uh spence over here that we uh they're kind of like kids when they first come in they're you know loving they're happy and then they turn into uh teenage [ __ ] is trying to kill you just like in jiu jitsu class little kids start start cool and then next you know they're over here beating up on old man [Laughter] okay wow so you got the birds now you guys and when they when they when they do to when they do send them out to harvest when they send them out what's the process do they line them all up and like just neck them out now this will this probably a little wild we'll bring in 19 tractor trailers and hand load them on three guys they'll bring them up it's like a little escalator takes them right up and they pick one up put them in the cage load the cage up truck goes down turns back around they can load a truck up in like 35 minutes and they're gassing them well they take them back to the processing facility and that's they i think they use like a co2 base and they'll just put them to sleep then they're cutting them up really sing them up conveyor belt so they put the meat to they just put them to sleep yeah so they're not shooting them it's not like anything no no yeah so like on the farm they you got two options for your animal welfare you can uh either they have like a bolt gun like a cap gun you hit them in the back of the head with it and i'll just take them right out or some farmers rig up like a little box with co2 and they'll put them in and that way they go night just go to sleep and then you put them in the compost and then we compost the birds for uh crop rotation we'll put them on the fields and stuff oh so they'll become a fertilizer almost yeah we'll create fertilizer yep all natural so you so you guys don't do the actual uh so the killing isn't actually known by you guys it's shipped it's like outsourced yeah so now so now i will you know bugsy seagull out there just rolls up huh yeah so we will kill birds and ones i have to call i'll i'll pull the meat out for friends and family cut the breast me and i've got some pictures i'll give you guys and you can show them the size of the breast and stuff like that but damn yeah man constant okay so so we're talking about the hip man the guy comes in the trucks come in we load them out at night and then they uh start to they go to the plant they get uh you know processed up and then they're out the door within like 24 to 48 hours so you don't see them back you're not there putting them in the box you're not there putting them in i'm there i watch them go out make sure everything runs smoothly on my end that way the birds are you know safely loaded yeah send them away because that's you know that's our livelihood right yeah that's the work i mean look that's what it is i mean people love it i mean yeah i mean i think people do anyway has the has the turkey market have people been buying less turkey over time what's going on with turkey so turkey's like influx so you'll get two years of like markets up and it'll drops back down then it'll go back up and generally that's because when they go up butterball and these bigger companies will come in and be like we need to put 100 more houses across here so they'll flood the market with turkey then they'll sit there because we don't freeze our birds our kid is out fresh like what do you mean where they say we need to like what do you mean that they're just in the market when they need to put more houses what do you mean so they'll see the market value you know turkey value go up and then what what does it get to you know yeah like you breast meat might be four something five something a pound you know they really throw the or then it'll be as low as a dollar when it crashed because they'll have a lot of birds frozen those bigger companies hold that stuff oh i see yeah we really specialize you know not only in just turkey growth we were the first ones doing antibiotic and organic turkeys we have two different divisions and we're considerably a small company compared to cargill or pilgrim's pride or tyson tyson's huge and butterball is the biggest turkey company probably in the world yeah i used to watch uh yeah i know i've had some butterball before i'm sure yeah i don't know if i liked it or not i remember now what about this guy is a question right here this italian guy all right what's up theo what's up turkey farmer got a question man what's up with the free range and the natural and the organic and the regular is that just a farce is it the real deal what are you buying at the stores thanks that's that's a good question yeah it's a great question man yeah what is it how do they divide that up what do you guys have to do do you guys have to so so if it's a like the other farms are more like the organic farms or the antibiotic free that's uh it's heavily regulated so you got a lot more paperwork and actually like to be an organic turkey it has to come for organic females so all those the closest organic female to us i believe is in pennsylvania so we have contract farms npa that grows grows that particular bird okay so so a lot of what goes in i heard this i have a friend that works for like a meat company yeah called cow or something i think and uh but it's kow right and he sent me some fancy meat one time and it's good but you know it's still expensive but um he was saying that what determines grass fed it's just uh it's certain like really regulations don't even really have to do sometimes with what they're eating it's just sometimes where they live at things like that what uh so what's that like for you guys so you have the different different levels so like a uh au or whatever they call it's antibiotic-free the only difference in between that is if say a bird gets like a common cold or something you wouldn't be able to treat it with like our pen or a penicillin for like one or two days and everything's done very properly with a vet you know we have a vet that checks the birds it's just a crazy uh industry but they they make sure they've really went and stepped you know from what it used to be to now it's it's by the book everything's clean and done professionally but so was it it used to be the used to be this the damn dark art from from what i hear back in we've been doing it since 89 and it's been fairly consistent all the way up just you know more regulations and we we're wanting to stay on top of everything yeah but for like a free range bird so all they'll do is they'll take my barn build doors and then the doors will open and then they can go out in a fenced in area okay sometimes they don't even go out like my buddy grows uh free range they yeah they free uh free-range chickens same thing he spent all this money they leave the doors open the birds are inside where it's nice and safe anyway if it's sunny they might come out for a little bit check up and then they see a hawk or something they'll i tell it back in yeah maybe andy dufresne sneaks out at night or one of them or one of them government geese drop a turd down there i'm just saying you think there'd be a lot more of that madagascar type activity you know somebody trying to really uh put it throw a dirty spider in charlotte's web out there you know but um okay so what are the different types of different varieties of turkey that's for sale on the market you're just to have the antibiotic free you're going to have an organic bird a free range bird and then what they call a cage free bird which snow bird is caged up in a little cage that's just a fake narrative that people create to try to give people bad name farmers sure and no bird is completely cage free either like you gotta have some sort of way to keep the bird or it could leave right can turkeys leave well i mean i've had it where uh they're smart enough to turn the doorknob and whack it open with their wing and actually try to make a jailbreak everyone oh yeah man but that's that's far few between that the turkeys are in a wide open barn you know you're looking at one barns 40 000 square feet dang per barn okay so you guys get out there you got all the turkeys they come in and they go out um and like so around thanksgiving like is there an extra batch do you double up on your batches like starting in like october or something or you know would you say it's not 19 weeks 19 weeks so that's that's for a heavy tom and um if if it's going for when we're doing like turkeys for thanksgiving they're probably they're probably putting them in they're taking them out at half that so they're probably going out around 13 to 15 weeks with a medium-sized bird okay and that's the one that most people buy for yes that's what they're going to buy for thanksgiving and they'll put these specialty birds just for that and they're they're medium toms is what they'll call them damn yeah and how'd they get the name tom it's genetically i guess that's what you call you know a tom and a hen and we'll have hens in there occasionally because they'll sex them but they don't always get them right so you have big old hens mixed in there with the tom is there trans turkeys do you start to see that even in like the turkey uh they don't really identify other other than tom and hen and maybe you know you'll find a dominant i found hens with beards on them maybe they're maybe they're transitioning oh i found some of them too around town i've definitely dude one of my buddies had a real issue with them um but he's doing good now i mean he's doing pretty good anyway he's on like a ranch right now in montana but um the holidays are the most wonderful time of the year it's a good time to to hug somebody and to tickle somebody you don't even know that well if you want legally and in a safe area with more people shopping online every year you gotta ship stuff man you gotta damn get things out of your possession and into somebody else's possession even santa i heard a rumor some he's not even going to some countries anymore because of the crime and stuff and he's going he's just going to ship stuff there he's going to use ship station ship station works with all major carriers international and local including fedex usps and ups so not only is shipping easy you can actually save money now that's something no wonder 98 of companies that use ship station for a year keep using it for as long as they're in business it's that good use my code theo to get a 60 day free trial just enough time to handle the holiday rush just go to shipstation.com click on the microphone at the top and enter code t-h-e-o ship station make ship happen is there something interfering with your happiness is there is there something interfering with your happiness and that's a question you have to ask yourself you have to ask yourself is there something interfering with my happiness because when you get an answer if you really make an honest answer then it's a good place to start from to think about stuff and sometimes you can't think about things alone sometimes you need help and i've gotten help from this company betterhelp i've gotten it over zoom over phone and over uh s key payee uh skype skype skype skype visit betterhelp.com t-h-e-o that's b-e-t-t-e-r-h-e-l-p and join the over one million people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional don't go it alone try something different try something new better help might work for you betterhelp.com theo this podcast is sponsored by betterhelp and tpw listeners get 10 off their first month at betterhelp.com t-h-e-o it may be an option for you what what's like the future of the turkey business so well let me think what i want to ask right now so you got these different types you got the males so can i eat a male turkey or a female turkey at thanksgiving can i have either one yeah potentially it might be either or so i don't have any ideas no wow now my mom know if it comes in the kitchen and she's in there doing it yeah you would never know really yeah because uh so we sell turkey fries okay and that's turkey nuts so they're uh they're they have glands and their nuts are actually in their wings no way yeah so they'll pop them things out and you fry them up meet them up they good or bad they're good they're really good yeah i mean they're did they bust a little or they just kind of now they just fry them up it's just like you know eating it yeah like a what this is like a nugget like a chicken nugget you got a little thing you get you eat nuggets is this them right here yeah wow yeah yeah they're good man we've served them at numerous meetings you know congressmen and senators and stuff go to the turkey federation meeting we used to have them there i mean i just ate elk nuts like a week ago because we went out elk hunting and our guide fixed up a nice uh rocky mountain elk parmigiana i think look yo rogan can apparently eat his own penis i read the other day on the internet so i think at this point everything's everything's fair game dude if i was starving i'd eat one of my nuts right out of my damn body i think you know because if they feel it feels like you'd have to heal up good good oh yeah i'd have one i'm gonna have both of them like some creep you know damn but um okay so do why does turkey look so ugly though and does that offend you if i say that no i mean they're you know they are kind of like my babies but yeah no no i don't mean like that but you know what i'm saying like to me because i actually went jogging this morning and i go jogging on this around this lake and there's a lot of turkeys out there not this time of year actually but usually there's a lot of turkeys out there and they're just big and they're they're just not the most attractive you know they're not a peacock but right you know yeah i don't know they're pretty majestic for the most part it's probably just beauties in the eye of the beholder for the most part some people love turkeys love the way they look a lot of my buddies are turkey hunters so they're all about getting every every species of turkey on it and mount it and displayed as wall art for you know their memory of that hunt yeah and they like eating them too they're delicious um i don't know but you you kind of figure they probably were at some point some type of raptor if you go back to dinosaurs maybe they've just devolved yeah they grew a little fur got a little smaller claws but they still try to cut you yeah if they get a chance um how sharp is that talon how bad could that thing get you or not oh yeah i mean i've had them where they cut through my pants i sent uh sent some pictures over where they've gotten me uh in the leg in the back i mean they they're with our turkeys we don't have spurs so so they'll have those at the hatchery they'll have them nip and so we really don't get messed up but their front calls you know when they jump up they're jumping up with their feet to latch on okay you can see that yeah see that's a scar from there look i got some cam haze boots to save my toes but oh yeah but the rest of you you need that full cam haze yeah i know he needs to come out with some leggings or something for me pants or something so that's one turkey talent did that to you now what does their talons look like what is their le what does that leg look like let's see the foot okay the one that's spread out you see see they got these toenails and that's what's got that's that's what cut me one of those toenails oh wow so they have so they have a spur ours are docked so they won't have that long spur like on a wild turkey they'll be there but it'll be nubbed off because they cut them off yeah so you don't want that in there because they'll kill each other they'll be murdering like all sorts wow i wouldn't even go through there at a point if they were like that but uh now there's claws and like i said you'll you'll see turkeys you got videos of turkeys fighting out in the wilderness same thing just bigger bird they're going to jump up at you uh they'll try to get you i mean i've had them pecked me in the forehead working on feed line getting motors put back on they can uh and do they seem manipulative what do turkeys seem like as a very nice at first yeah so you know they're like hey what's up you could be sitting there and they'll kind of come up and you can you know pet them on the head and then just next thing you know they turn around run around and say yo john look at this and then i'll [ __ ] hammer you yeah so it's if you can work in twos a lot of times like i said i've been doing this so long by myself some of these repairs and i mean they'll pick motor lines everything where i have to go and replace electrical um they'll break water lines down where they'll rip the line tear the water up i got to get in there before it floods the barn i mean they can they can be destructive does it seem calculated though does it seem like they have it does yeah so we take every measure when we go through retiring the blinds making sure if there's a will there's a way a turkey will definitely [ __ ] something up but does their will seem to be that they want to create anarchy does it seem that they want to escape like where they want to no they you can literally leave the door open they won't go nowhere oh i see they'll just chill out maybe poke the head out they're just kind of like what's up but i think it's more like uh you're kind of like fresh meat in prison style you walk in there they're like well i'm gonna get you boy oh damn yeah after uh now this is after like 17 18 weeks they're coming at you yeah yeah they're right they got they got their testosterone up they don't know hormones going they're getting crazy so their testosterone raises while they're in there yeah so you take their baby bird and then they become essentially a teenager so they got that teenager and now they grow other birds for breeding purposes where they'll get real big 75 80 pounds will be less birds in there and i've i've never been to a farm like that i've seen them and they say that once they get over that 19 20 week range like 22 weeks their testosterone goes back down and then they like mellow back out but you're you're riding right around that nine to 18 19 weeks you got a good four weeks of you know battling just trying to get through there make sure everybody's good not not getting getting yourself tore up so you know it gets a little hip managed in that last month yeah so i mean i've had a guy one of my buddies mark straight got drilled in the nuts we had a i was watching him crawl out of the barn like it took him out took him out and you're talking about a force of a 40 pound bird and it just nut tagged him perfect he was laying on the ground he's trying to get the birds are jumping on yeah you kind of always get a fear like something happened you get crippled in there they probably just kill you what's a great question we got coming up right here about how many birds yo what up theo what up turkey farmer it's alex here fenton michigan um just really got a couple quick ones for you uh did the turkeys have large talons and if they do or or if they don't um how many do you think it would take to uh to take one of you down gang gang gang baby thank you brother yeah yeah how many turkeys did it take really to take out a robert hutman man i don't know probably 10 000 or so really i mean unless i stroke out or something in there they might get me but uh you know but it looked like the damage that one could cause is pretty extensive yeah yeah no they uh i guess it's just all in the right right way they get you anybody getting knocked out by anybody for the most part so you know i could be leaning over and one whacked me in a noggin and if you go out in there that's just that's they're gonna get you on the ground so they're more yeah they so they might go around and they they're just curious so they peck right you know you might say you struck out fall down that they peck you i'd imagine if no one found you for a few hours probably wouldn't be good right straight up so you run it with some real it's a really it's same as these cat ladies and [ __ ] that died with cats and get eaten up sitting in a chair dude we had a lady in my neighborhood growing up they had uh a panther in her she had a panther live in her place nobody everybody always thought she was crazy always yelling about this cat outside and people were like get back in your house you know and uh she had a [ __ ] bobcat or pant or something had a big daddy been living in her house and she's been in there living with it for years man and everybody's just like you're crazy miss dorothy you know go back inside and uh somebody threw a surprise party by our house or something and somebody jumped out and yelled surprising that damn cat [ __ ] almost killed the guy damn serious [ __ ] i mean it's just you don't know you know you don't know really what's going on nothing inside of some of these animals that's really the tricky part for me yeah um is there is there a time where you get a real big one and you're like oh i got to pull this one out because this one i gotta use for breed and this one is goes somewhere else does that ever happen or at this point you know exactly no no we're getting into the perfect genetics for for the birds to create uh you know solid breast meat we're really going for a heavier bird for breast and uh and thigh so we can feed feed america trying to get back and uh that's why we're always revolving and just constant constant birds year round so how has the meat damn that's you right there yeah damn so that's when they're that's your first wife yeah this is damn beautiful pretty good yeah that's actually when they're going out so that's a good picture see felines raised everything's there lights are on it's nighttime that's one of the heavier birds that he probably weighed close to only 46 47 pounds and this is only a middle tom right no this is a heavy thomas oh this is heavy that's that's big boy's there that's that see they got little beards whatnot dude it's really they're kind of beautiful i didn't i guess i haven't seen pictures like this yeah they're nice pretty white birds and uh really clean like i said the that's why we do litter quality we're in there tilling day to day operation every week we go in there with a tractor and a tiller to make sure the you know the shavings get brought back to the top everything stays nice for their feet because if you've got poor litter quality and poor life these birds won't look like that they'll be uh we really run down they'll have burned pads on their feet from the turkey turkey crap it'll burn their feet so that's why yeah that's why we make sure everything's nice and nice and clean so they're a real sensitive animal huh they can be yeah it's interesting how they're tough and you know turkeys are smart and dumb all at the same time guess just like me yeah me too dude damn i didn't know it's possible and then here we are [Laughter] um what's something that i wouldn't expect about a turkey man what's something that's really unique about them compared to maybe any other animal is there something that really stands out about them because they definitely look really different they definitely they kind of seem like a peacock that's been you know essentially a peacock is a turkey just just a different you know they're very very similar but they'll get hooks too they'll get spurs they just got a weirder uh call than a turkey does and then um i don't know they're characteristics i mean they're pretty much you know noble noble animal they they stick together um i don't know just i've been around them for so long you know taking my i was raised raised up in it 89 i was like five years old when my parents started it so your parents started this business yeah my mom and dad did it mom worked at the bank dad worked down the road driving heavy equipment for a company down in northern virginia and he would commute like two hours back and forth and we just needed to figure out a better way to to bring some money in for the farm because the farm i actually live on hazard mill farms it's uh been in the family since you know continuously since the late 1700s and then we've been operating my great great grandfather bought it in 1888 from another family member and he bought a bunch of these tracks up and he owned both sides of the river now my other family owns the other side we got this side right on the shenandoah river and has it always been turkeys for both sides or no no we we my parents were the so i guess i'd be a second generation turkey part but i mean we did beef cattle my great grandfather would forge the river and bring cattle over there they did tomatoes for the cannon factory he was a big time farmer granted we were poor and lived off the land but they uh now i mean i'm looking at some uh prime real estate that i just happened to put in the conservation easements i think i worry about the development it's all bordered by national forests right on the river yeah right on the river oh wow it's beautiful yeah so do do uh so you guys at what point did you guys get out of cropping and just get into uh turkeys so we were just on beef cattle my dad started uh started back bringing beef back on he married in to the my mom's side and it's my mom my grandmother my aunt that ain't that property and you know he started it and then they decided said you can grow like i was telling you instead of having to have 200 head of cattle you can make the same money with two turkey barns that take up 14 acres wow so we're able to preserve the land to the way we want because we're more more mountain land it's all up on mastodon mountain got some fields out there we do hay and pasture but other than that you know we couldn't run uh the 200 hit of cattle to make enough liv you know make a living right justify it so right well this is just more economical makes more sense for you yeah it's still you know to start a new barn start to finish right now if you're looking at you're probably looking at 1.5 million per barn really start to finish and then you're not going to turn a profit until i think they're saying depending when that barn gets built 13 months to 16 months by time your first flock and you're turning over some money so say you sell a flock right the market's at a decent price how i mean can you is it can you make a decent living i mean i used to work on a farm i worked on soybean corn and cotton farm in college at the end of college and or at the end of high school and beginning of college and you know i didn't own anything but i saw basically kind of how the living was and like how like you know when there was a bad crop there was some subsidization by the government stuff like that so at least you had a little bit of backup because you were providing like uh something and yeah because you're probably providing a value to amer you know you're providing like food or whatever it was or animal food or whatever um what uh what what is it like for you guys there with the market is it a like what can a turkey farmer make i'm pretty small scale compared to the other guys so like cash flow wise you know i'm pulling in you know roughly depending the flock average you know you can make it 150 you know give or take a year now and that's not just on and granted i'm still paying electric you know some of that cost comes out but we're kind of like a cooperative so we get we we we do get uh some dividends and stuff through that so it's not not as bad as if i just grew for a privatized company like you were sharecropping or something yeah or if i grew for like uh butterball or something right they'll give you uh incentives and stuff as well if you do good for your first two years but after that then there's no other incentive to grow for them and then you're already kind of locked you're capped in at what you got and then you're like well do i build a couple more barns and take another chunk of investment out so so it's 1.5 million to start a new barn roughly if you wanted to start one and that's and it's going to be and that's before you start to make any money to come in it'll be through after your first flock is done that's three four months yeah five months maybe no no it's uh first flop it's it's it's like i said 13 to 14 months you're built you got your first flock in and it's out the door turn around okay and how long is that flock coming you said it's 19 weeks 19 weeks 19 weeks okay how much months is that almost five months so you can maybe do two flocks in a year kind of is that what you kind of go for we go three flocks a year oh you do yeah oh because you can overlap some yeah yeah huh do you have the idea that you want to do another barn you think you kind of get where you're at i'm good where i'm at i got a like i was telling him i'm moving i shut down one production side and i'm actually i've created hazmat selects so right now we're doing cbd we're growing hemp in there and then where virginia just went legal for uh marijuana so that's my whole another step i'm getting ready to try to get one of these permits and go dude if you came out with a tip with that turkey thc that [ __ ] that'll put you to sleep boy you know what i'm saying dude because both those things will put me to sleep if i have a little bit of turkey or have a dang hit on a joint or hit on it damn yeah just smell you right now dab you know hell if i even kiss some girl that's been smoking dope i'll [ __ ] go to bed man i gotta sleep real easy dude i'm real you know i'm saying that i don't see you gotta rub your belly oh dude i see a pillow somewhere it's over yeah you know it's time um why does why does turkey make people go to sleep yeah i'm not too familiar with it but i know they it releases some type of uh endorphin or or whatnot but it it's supposed to it's kind of like a melatonin you get from it do turkeys sleep a lot do they have it because it's in them i guess well they'll they'll kind of get in that nesting when the you know lights go out for them they'll they'll get their downtime and they'll kind of rubble up and that that's when they're all together they kind of just like to stick together and you'll see see them all like winged wing just chilling out and nestled down they'll take the fresh shavings kick it over and then just kind of snuggle up kind of like lines or something like if you see a uh lines out there yeah um now what are turkeys like different in the wild so do you turkey hunt also yeah i'm a habit hunter fisherman outdoorsman yeah um pretty much the same except for that they're able to they're not as heavy so they'll fly up and roost every night so they'll do the same thing but they'll roost in trees together okay um how high can a turkey get up in a tree i've seen them up in pine trees 20 20 to 30 feet no way then they'll come off that roost and just glide i mean if they're off off a canyon or a little cliff style they'll just glide over and go like three or four hundred yards and then just poop and then they start doing doing turkey things start pecking and looking for food and scratching around i've actually had turkeys come up to my barns and get them riled up where they're gobbling back and forth at each other during spring time outside like what's up and then they just start going back and forth and who fights more than males or female turkeys the males yeah females you know other than if something's trying to get after their babies they generally in the wild they don't right yeah what keeps them from mating when they're in uh y'all's uh containment over there i think it's just because they're not technically a mature bird oh so they're not even at what age do they start to mate like right about right when they're getting ready to go out so they don't really you know so a lot of them are never going to see fatherhood really no no well they just get their uh you know do their job and you know feed america it's uh it's entertainment hey everybody i mean it's uh is there a lot of pushback on the industry no not i wouldn't say for it's such a staple see turkeys you know we're not like chicken companies so you know they're we're a little more of a niche market compared to like purdue for their chickens because you know you're not seeing turkey chicken nuggets you ain't seen turkey nuggets right inside so the demand's so high for chicken that they have have a larger turnaround and then there you know there's instances where you see some some bad stuff that happens on farm with other workers and stuff like that but how did how did y'all lose that battle was there like a battle where it was like chicken or turkey was gonna be the excite the one the new the thing you know i don't know man they've been growing uh turkey since like the 50s and 60s in the shenandoah valley where i'm from and um i don't think it was ever uh i guess it was something back in the day because i guess turkeys got stapled as a thanksgiving you know niche and then you think i'm gonna eat turkey once a year maybe christmas you know yeah so you're like okay i'll eat my turkey and then just eat chicken the rest of the time yeah yeah so i think maybe we kind of got ourselves put into the first thanksgiving put us here yeah people get tired eat that big meal you get tired and you're like oh i'm good on turkey for a while yeah maybe that's part of it too maybe turkey has that thing where it's like i'm gonna um i'm a holiday vibe yeah i think it's true it's like it's been romanticized kind of in culture as yeah like a holiday meat special like yeah it's a fancy thing you would see rich people like get a thing and they got a big uh plaque or something they're eating off of and they're you know somebody's rich and the kid's on pills or whatever but he's still laughing like it's all you know like the norman rockwell or something you'd see those pictures and i think it makes you have a full turkey a full-size pig with an apple stuck in yeah yeah yeah king's table like king's law yeah yeah you would see that you're like oh man this is a fancy turkey leg oh yeah somebody um here's a question that came in right here from christopher right here let's get to it hey theo mr turkey farmer this is chris from down in sydney australia rise obliged rise up like i was just uh wondering i'm a big fan of turkey i think it's a great meat it's nourishing it's lean and i just wondered why you don't see it on more fast food chains like at mcdonald's or kfc because you know me i'd love to have a gobble gobble uh no homo yeah yeah it's good yeah but yeah that's my question why don't you see turkey on more fast food menus because it's a great great meat yeah it is gang baby thank you bro and uh rise up lights if you say razer if you say rise up lights rise up lights a couple times it sounds like razor blades in australia okay rise up lights you just taught me something there yeah try it it rise up lights rise up lights up lights yeah it sounds like razor blades razor so anyway just good ice breaker good you know keep the wife warm with that one but that's a great question yeah how does it why isn't it do you think it's headed that way well first start why isn't it and why isn't turkey more that thing now you do see it at like a jimmy john's you do see subways you see it at orbeez um so you're seeing like a lot of them it's going to be like the sliced turkey so that's something that we would probably sell like a product where they're getting that breast meat to the masses i'd love to see like a turkey tender instead of a chicken tender i just think the market for it to be sustainable like that the reason you haven't seen the turkeys go hard um it's just really just the we don't have that type of that many farmers out there to actually be able to consistently sustain that that demand at the moment so it's kind of like we go all in and then say you guys don't end up wanting to you know turkey nuggets or whatnot and then then you got like a lot of farmers don't invest you know two three million dollars in this stuff and then they're out out on the streets again you almost need a different hype man you need like a big pr thing to be like turkey is that thing it's like because you see us at panera bread that's another big comp oh yeah yeah yeah it's interesting i hadn't really thought like it's only turkey is often sliced or you see it at like a boston market or something like that sometime a place where they do more of a meal i think yeah it's regarded as more of a meal and not as much of a i don't want to say like a cheap eat but because i love turkey burgers turkey burgers is something i love delicious that's great man so and maybe some of it's growing over time do you know if the market is growing over time um it has compared i mean you're going from you know when my parents started in 89 i know i know they've had some attempts niche markets where they pushing it but now since people are more wanting to know what they put in their body like he was saying people want that lean protein from that turkey and it's different than chicken yeah i think it's if not better i mean you barbecue up a couple a couple chicken tenders and slice that breast up just right i mean oh it's good on the grill good good anywhere man [ __ ] looks good man yeah god damn it looks good you know i'm thinking about it right now dude if i had it i'd cook it for you [ __ ] man at the end people see you they just want some damn turkey like yeah what are you doing here give me something it's like hey man can i get another [Laughter] you know is one part is there a part of the turkey that's being used for something new and novel that we're that we don't know about or like a new like is there a part that they're using they sell everything from our turkeys to everything yeah the the feathers will go you know they they've even shipped stuff to south korea stuff like that the guts the in-ear stuff like that i don't know what they use them for but they've found a really good market where they can you know be very useful and use pretty much all the birds the feet what you know huh so there's a niche for just about anything in the world somebody's going to eat it like we were just talking about turkey fries you wouldn't think that would be a niche but we sell a pile of turkey fries and what is it oh a turkey fries and nut nuts yeah turkey damn you haven't had that you know two out of three men two-thirds of men will experience uh some form of hair loss oh the other day i saw a guy watching a scary movie and his damn mustache fell right off right onto the damn remote dear god well keeps offers a simple stress free way to keep your hair convenient virtual doctor consultations and medications delivered straight to your door every three months you don't have to leave your home low cost treatments start at just ten dollars per month and keeps offers generic versions if you're ready to take action and prevent hair loss go to keeps.com slash theo to receive your first month of treatment for free that's k-e-e-p-s dot com slash t-h-e-o get your first month free it's a great gift for someone they're struggling with hair loss so they're worried or if you are treat yourself keeps dot com slash theo you know my favorite pair of sweats have become my dang favorite pair of business attire these days with the world where it is you people are doing business from a damn bunker in their backyard you see a dude doing damn business and he's on a damn uh and he's doing um kegels and chest exercises with his buddies in the park times have changed yup it's ridiculous that i got to change if i'm running for a coffee or if i'm running for an actual run it shouldn't be that way that's why you got to check out public wreck they make elevated athleisure wear hey in multi-dimensional sizes jeeps because they believe that comfort starts with a better fit their best-selling all-day everyday pant is available in over 40 different sizing combinations and can fit men anywhere from five eight to nearly seven feet tall dang that's drastic measures dang they come in nine different colors one for each day of the week and you could do two weekends if something happened to the week of the second week public wreck also makes elevated shorts t-shirts polos jackets even golf gear they've got it all public wreck rarely discounts but right now they have an exclusive offer just for tpw listeners go to publicrec.com and use promo code theo to receive 10 percent off that's publicrec rec.com and use promo code theo for 10 off public wreck yourself um what else we got over there spence anything else come in here's a question right here from a white guy what up theo it's carl out here in milwaukee wisconsin shout out nick uh i have a quick question for your turkey farmer uh what does he eat on thanksgiving because for me if i was processing all those birds and and getting ready for this thanksgiving rush i'd be so over it i'd be like no we're gonna get some steaks we're gonna get some ham or something something else um so what does he do and then if he is turkey then what's his favorite side because obviously the birdman is going to know the best side to go with some turkey so i'm looking for some suggestions appreciate you yeah birdman yeah what's the uh what is it what's the choice from the captain himself what what is it you know i always joke around with the guys with the company we eat one of our turkeys every year so like just before i come here one of my guys from the company we kill kill our own birds and then we keep keep our turkey birds and we give everybody and the company a free turkey okay but with that being said i i mean i've been lobbying to to get some ham maybe partner up with a pig company or a check exchange or something yeah y'all do is there any dark you sneaking over there at night across the freaking pig pen or what is there any no no it's not that uh but do you choose so for thanksgiving you guys have turkey yes i i i mean i cook a lot of them you know borderline chef wife's a chef but uh we we do the i do a nice infrared so i don't deep fried but i put them in that infrared and it gets that crispiness just like a deep fried bird without all that oil really is that the new thing that's delicious is it yeah because i grew up on that turducken man and even though i answered damn uh i remember it's like a turkey and a duck and then they fill it with cheetos i remember [ __ ] and i'm like what is this [ __ ] you know what i'm saying the head damn every spicy cheetos uh i think i couldn't tell i think it was regular okay yeah because we nobody in our area ate those jalapeno cheetos yeah it was more they didn't even have the hot ones at that point it was just they were still doing the regular cheeto you know something to try but that third item now did that turducken did that ever hit you do you guys have to do that no no um i've never i mean i've bought a turducken you believe in all that it's not it's okay it's just a lot going on you got the turkey and chicken and all that stuff stuffed in there sometimes i've seen them stuff a quail in that thing yeah or i've seen uh tyrala tarala geep or whatever it is tur allah geep it's turkey alligator and then sheep meat in it and i'm like at some point people are just damn this is a damn gang bang i feel like you know what i'm saying like that's a little too much i feel like if uh you get those all those meats and just cook them primarily alone and you can still do your own mix yeah you could mix it on your plate like why do you have to i feel like they give robs flavor from one or the other yeah it's a lot of trial and error there um now i like i like my turkey i like to do it uh you know in that infrared deep fryer style oilless fryer whatever you want to do is i've never had that that song it's almost like a sauna so it's uh it's propane and then it's like one of those uh smokeless fire pits you know so now the smoke comes up and it's like a tube and you drop the turkey in just like a fryer and the heat just goes around it and they crisp it up just press oh damn yeah like that thing's in barbados or something i like to inject it with some marinades get it juicy do you guys also have you ever thought of getting into that market or that's not really your market to get into like a marinade it's because i guess you don't have that store front i i right now do not have the storefront eventually i you know hazard bill farms itself you know we're planning to put in uh probably some grapes do a winery i wanted to infuse some cbd into my wine tasting room i got a vents barn down there on the river we've been doing some events and stuff so yeah i'm curious you sound like you have like a do you feel like you wanted to be a turkey farmer do you feel like you wanted to be an entrepreneur like where do you kind of feel like some of your sense to do to be a businessman came from um just just being able to diversify and uh my major push is to save small farms be creative and then give back so entrepreneurship was you know all on me setting around i want to be creative so my daughter doesn't have to sell the property or i think the death of small farms is really where the mom and dad starts to farm we can't afford to live off them we go get a job then we end up getting our own career so they just never really come back to the farm until mom and dad dies and then boom they're celibate and then they're selling it because their interest is going so yeah it's interesting how we do that huh yeah so i'm here to you know the that's why i came to chat i mean i'm really i'm on uh sixth district is the con congressional district i'm in i'm on the ag advisory committee for congressman klein okay and uh and that's in virginia yeah that's in virginia so really bad props to ben klein good friend of mine he really wants to know what's every net she wants to know what's good for dairy for his district what's good for poultry um you know he he doesn't know much about it because he you know he was an attorney commonwealth attorney and then got got the congressional uh spot there a few years back so i mean just i give him bad props he's going out trying to find us like-minded farmers to meet and then help him out what do we need how we can do better and how how can we save these farms and keep keep us rocking wow and what's the biggest threat to the small farms um subdivisions and development oh really yeah well i guess when you said that you had that conservative ship now a conservatorship i got a conservation easement yeah with vcc virginia council um out of uh stanton virginia so your land will be safe now so they can't develop within even if it sold they would have to buy that thing in a large track and there's no commercial nor uh housing can be developed wow if anything did happen yeah you know it's interesting because i had on a guy who does small game he does like if you got something in your house that's not your wife or kid and it shouldn't but it's trying to you know yeah be alive you know what i'm saying that mid-size animal control man yeah this fella and he said that a lot of times you find raccoons in your house you understand he goes it's because he's like they don't know what your house dude they're not like robbers or burglars you know like they're not like the wet bandits you know what i'm saying like they are just they think it's a tree like their trees have all been torn down and [ __ ] so they're just climbing into whatever seems like it's close to that so it's interesting when we start to really give up our nature um i think a lot of it goes too too we get so stuck inside of ourselves like i was going for a jog this morning it's beautiful out there man and that's the place where i seen the wild turkeys they just have them out there and like you see them gobbling and something they'll be a little crew i'm pretty cool just just to run right i mean you're probably 15 20 feet and sometimes they're they run off sometime they'd be a little curious but so it's like but it's i'm sometimes i'm so in my head the whole time i'm running i'm barely even seeing that i'm in like a damn beautiful place you know i mean it's stunning so i'm missing all of the uh i'm missing all of the nature i think a lot of that kind of stuff happens because we just don't we don't even value it anymore we don't even see it yeah you know um anyway that's a long diatribe for me but so so one of the big biggest problems is people coming along and just building stuff yeah yeah so like i said as soon as that family loses interest and i you can't blame the kid that went out and started a nice career somewhere else i get it but if if we're able to diversify agritourism is huge for us right now that's kind of what i'm what i'm doing with the i want to do the grapes the wine cbd eventually cannabis you know i just want to be able to have a good living with the wedding venue and events venue that i'm doing right now it's been a big hit done a lot of charity work this past year with it so it's give back to the community why we you know try to preserve this you know beautiful piece of track of land i got and uh just that whole valley we i'm very fortunate not only my property i mean we we have a whole corridor on that river that's all under conservation easement now on the shenandoah valley can you bring that up yeah south fork of the shenandoah river um and i think it's interesting that uh you know because it is interesting if you're doing events and when i saw those pictures of the white can you show me the pit to the picture of you in there without those white birds it's funny it really changed a lot of my perception of what i was even talking about because i just don't have any idea a lot of people have you just have no idea yeah you don't you don't know the market it's not a very uh you've never seen anything yeah that's me right there shadow river oh that's beautiful man yeah we got the uh that's so that's a view from andy gatz go down a little bit that right there shando state park that's in so that's a view back going toward my mountain okay that's uh my family across the river there uh my great uncle put that and sold that to the state park to save it from being developed wow so it's andy gas state park it's really i mean i'm not trying to be biased but i think we have probably the prettiest stretch of river in the whole valley but uh it goes all the way up to paige and leray and they'll it'll run all the way to harpers ferry all the way up to in tennessee west virginia harpers ferry oh wow yeah it flows north so go all the way down dump into a potomac so front royal they'll run in that's our town we live in north and south meet and then that shenandoah river becomes one the john denver stuff then you'll go on down and it'll join in harper's ferry and dump into the potomac wow i just we did a set of soak i always go along the potomac i never knew what it was i mean i knew about it yeah but it's uh yeah it's just funny we just i mean i don't know i don't say we but i need to see more nature so that it becomes a you know more of a common understanding anytime you want to come out take you fishing i see you called smallmouth there a while back oh yeah dude barely caught it jesus but it was pretty cool we were catching um the minnows minnows yeah literally out of like if we had like one of those nets you throw it yeah it was so cool i've never done it so then you you get it on the thing and then you put it in this other thing in this other area where the water is water and then next thing you know you get a uh oh dude they were like hammering it but after about 32 minutes 31 minutes they quit i think that word got out yeah they you got so many in one hole they get gigs get up but yeah yeah anytime uh you come on out to the river man we'll take you up what's the city that's near you guys so front royal blue ray that's kind of rural uh front row where the gateway is skyline drive and that's the start and skyline drive will go all the way down to stanton and it turns into the blue ridge parkway it goes north carolina okay um but winchester i know you've probably heard of winchester winchester virginia yeah no so that's the next one up and then we're only like 70 miles from dc okay yeah yeah man i wouldn't mind coming to check out the turkey farm maybe on a tour whenever we do dc we could set it up because we just went to richmond but um i'm sure we'll go somewhere else but yeah it's just funny man until i saw that picture of you with those i'm like i didn't even know they looked like this i don't have a real perception of something um what's another question that came in uh here for robert uh spence oh shoot gotta turn that around what up theo what up turkey killer uh i know theo you know he believes in it and uh certain people like to debate it but i want to know if there's ever been a turkey with that ds you know you've seen one with one eye open or cross-eyed or whatever um curious to see if you ever seen one and do those kind of get kicked out from the rest of the group as far as what gets put on thanksgiving dinner table or what uh let me know all right gang gang turkey hitter gang baby yeah do turkeys get diseases like humans do they get down syndrome they'll have some modified genetics every once while like a crooked foot or you know just like a droopy neck or it's not so much like what we call it like down syndrome i just think it's you know they're born with some type of disability and uh usually they get called out just uh nature yeah man you either uh you don't want that bird to suffer in it it's like i said depending on the bird like one guy asked if we ever kind of keep him i do have like a a holding pin to help birds heal back up and if they can make it they can that way they're not in general population yeah yeah kind of yeah yeah get them out of gin put them in that solitaire but uh but now we you know we're we're just trying to run a a healthy successful business hopefully and but yeah they just get cold man some sometimes it's a dog eat world out there yeah it's andrew it's funny how we we romanticize nature as if it's gonna do this beautiful thing for itself that once we become involved that like oh well um of course sometimes we're using animals for food of course but but also it's like you know like a raccoon will kill its children a raccoon a man raccoon will kill a female raccoon's children just so she'll go back into heat so we can have sex same with the bear i mean that's some damn that's i mean that's some lesser whole [ __ ] yeah you know what i'm saying dude that's dark arts yeah so you know being being ethical and uh properly euthanizing them on the spot you know you got to make that call and not even second guess i mean cam talks the same stuff about how you know cruel the hunting you know the nature is compared to honey and it's true i mean you you're able to you know arrow that that animal or you know shoot that animal at a good ethical shot and you're able to harvest that meat with you know minimum damage where you you watch a wilder beast or whatever out there getting eaten by a line while he's just sitting there with a broken back hollering same with the bears and it's just yeah they're not doing it athlete it's not like they're inviting them to a damn holiday inn or they eat them while they're still alive so it's like man come on it's interesting that whole that whole world is interesting you know um we had the guy jimmy john who uh john liatau who who ran the jimmy you created the jimmy john's company right we were talking a little bit he's a big game hunter and but what some people don't know is that you pay sometimes exorbitant fees to go hunt like a specific animal and then the fee will uh pay for like the yeah we'll pay for like local school i mean especially like when you're in africa some of these other countries like you're paying for like you're gonna really keep that economy alive and it provides that food for that that community i mean oh yeah there's tons of things that go into that yeah that's true the food too yeah conservation is key because they they have those villagers come and actually i have a friend that's south african and they you know his family had a hunting preserve he moved to my town but same thing man they're they're there to feed the the village and they got like 100 little they they watch out for uh poachers they'll notify the oh yeah you know they're there to snitch on these you know awful people that are poachers and you know that's their livelihood yeah it's their future that's what keeps them surviving yeah so it's interesting it's like wendy it's like yeah what is you like that whole line is very interesting um do you feel like turkeys seem like a regular pet do they seem like a dog do they seem like they have that kind of thing in them or do they seem more distant and more like just a snack i mean there's a there's a fine balance if you i don't care if that turk you had two turkeys by themselves and a pen that you farm-raised your they can kind of you know they can get to the point where they're kind of a little bit nicer but like i said they the the people that are raising turkeys small small range and backyard um at a point at that 18 to 19 old range they're still going to be an [ __ ] right but like i said as they get older that stuff goes away they they'll mellow out right now i've seen turkeys that are pretty chilled and cool and then i've seen turkeys that are you know it's probably just like human nature you know we some of us are chilled and others are complete dicks oh dude most i mean when i was 16 years old i was probably deserved to die yeah i mean if i'm really in the same house everybody i know did uh what's the personal life like over there you got a spouse i see you brought your beautiful wife here today uh where'd you guys meet oh we met uh at a bar yeah yeah you gotta when y'all were how what age were you oh i think i was mid-20s by then so yeah i think we've been together for about eight years so that's a nice run huh how's it been when you give him a thumbs up so far she puts up with me does she yeah she's a good girl did she want to be a entrepreneur does she have a business side or is that yeah yeah so she she uh she she came from the restaurant industry chef ran a restaurant there in town for a while we got together i built her a food truck she was chefing up some some quality food at a couple wineries we do some big events like cycle virginia where there's like not only 35 3 800 cyclists oh wow and then uh we do other events and then now she's doing uh tiny hazard uh kids clay she we have a daughter that's five years old and she makes some really uh unique pieces for for other moms they got a bunch of different moms groups and stuff they so she's a homemaker she's making uh making awesome awesome clothes and it's called tiny hazards okay cool yeah we'll share the website and stuff and share the link and so that's a small business and that's what kind of stuff would you get from there could you get stuff for the holiday season from there yeah yeah she's getting ready i think you got a whole holiday line you're doing so she's got the christmas collection there you go yeah and it's for children's clothing yeah yeah so snow for kids i'm sure she would make something for some animals some dogs and cats but she's got her template uh done and she'll do uh from babies up to toddlers so it's kind of like that i don't know if you ever heard of rags but that's kind of kind of like a kid's clothes like that but it's raining nice now i'm gonna have to check it out i don't have any children yet but i wouldn't mind getting a wife and getting some children well you're in nashville there's plenty of them down there i know man a lot of them down there are getting damn dui's you know saying i gotta find one i think a little further away from broadway where there's a little less lick around yeah well you're good over here you probably get your suburban i got a yeah maybe one with some more antibiotics in it yeah get you a farm girl i wouldn't mind you know one with like you know something in kentucky with horse farm or something yeah i wouldn't mind you know sometimes i wonder why like uh you definitely find it you definitely find more of like kind of a hunt not i don't want to say homemaker type but people that there's people that's more family-centric i think here yeah um in like los angeles there it's a little bit more work-centric and it's hard to have a family because everybody kind of that's part of a family but it's hard to have like a space yeah for a family to really like breathe i think well it's good to get that teammate she does you know she does she's not just at home she works for a successful barbecue company she does all the bookkeeping tax preparation same with me she keeps my my books in order so i don't have to think as much yeah on that i feel you taxes taxes are the devil thinking's a damn devil dude that's trouble yeah it is trouble man um and what's the biggest threat then to turkey crops every year um just just the unknown avian flu or something like lightning or something no lightning's not a big deal no we're good it was that i mean that you you can have pileups if loud noises or go out but like i said we got alarm systems in there we know what that stuff's running at all i mean if something happened i get a phone call right now and on the send my worker in there um the bigger operations oh they'll have like a whole command center and they'll have cameras on every every angle computers run the it's like pumped yeah man computers computers run the curtain machines the heaters everything's on thermostat everything and we're trying to provide them with the best possible growing environment and that's pretty much you know as long as you don't mess up with the biosecurity and go in there and bring something from the outside world you're usually golden now they a lot of there's a lot of like uh hypo i mean even with that avian flu or whatever flu yeah and humans can get that too now that's not transmitted from from what i uh you know what we've read on that that's not something there's a type of avian flu that will go transfer to human but i think all that stuff's over in china and uh can we transfer anything to them is there any like illness that you would have or not have you said let's don't do it today no nothing uh that we carry would you know transcend over there i mean they had uh i think some turkeys had what they call like a blue comb it's kind of like a coronavirus but they that's something that's been for years they've had and it's just kind of similar symptoms other than you they get like a kind of a cough chill out for about two weeks it's just like a little flu but it's not you know it does hurt their growth but it doesn't really like massively kill them but i've heard of stuff like that out there but you know for the most part in the valley we've done very well and we're spaced out enough and we create you know good good quality birds and uh another little statistic i didn't even hit you with just just the industry alone for poultry in virginia you know that's that's a 12 to 13 billion dollar industry wow that we provide wow so it's not like it's small time i mean we're a small time but we're providing a much larger service than what we yeah yeah you don't think about it i mean people just think everything just comes from somewhere people think you just get emailed to turkey now like it's just you know yeah um one last question i had why can't why do we cannot have turkey eggs it's the same as chicken eggs yeah no way yeah yeah it's a bigger bigger egg i didn't know it it's bigger too it's a little bit bigger and does it taste the same i mean it's not too much different i've only had it a few times but i mean you could potentially get turkey eggs if you had like a a laying operation like a small time and it's i believe i don't even know anybody right now that does that you know like from a small farm aspect like you know everybody has some chickens or something yeah and they produce you get three chickens they're producing way more eggs than you could ever eat by yourself oh yeah my sister they am eating there you got eggs everywhere they're dying eggs they're dying eggs on them you know they're dying them for halloween and [ __ ] they're out of their minds but uh but yeah they got i love their that when they have chickens i love being over there some of the chickens get pretty friendly yeah some some will some uh usually them roosters like i said just like a turkey [ __ ] yeah coming up trying to throw throw bows on you so turkey's a bit more like a rooster yeah okay so that's concept you know how roosters can be really aggressive chase you them turkeys will chase you i wonder some of these kind of more like athletic type men's and stuff we do a chicken a turkey egg i wonder if there'd be a market for that like i feel like if i'm a protein you know like i'm one of those guys then i'd love to have me you know eight turkey eggs at the house have the boys come over yeah i don't i mean i think some of them guys they go for ostrich eggs you see how big they suckers oh really yeah let me see a turkey egg spence and we'll get out of here i never even looked at one yeah oh damn yeah see it's a handful that's bigger than a chicken egg yeah yeah that's bigger than a jumbo chicken egg at that you see all the whole palm of the hand so you're looking at maybe a regular eggs like that and then i like that there you go oh stunting and he's mixed too that one uh-huh got that speckle yeah boy damn that ben simmons baby let's go son um what do you do to keep busy outside of uh when you're not working uh about close nine ten years ago i started doing brazilian jiu jitsu did you yeah yeah and then uh been been doing it ever since started a gym now i got two gyms located at one in front royal one in lee ray my other buddies uh second degree black belt uh my buddy andy he's got a gentleman harrisonburg near jmu college and oh yeah so we started starting conference i think yeah they're going big time they're going good for them yeah man they're killing it they got got a good program and they'll bring in a lot more money with that new i think they're going to pack pacsun or or json or something something like that something something yeah sun belt no belt i think no belt that's my uh jiu jitsu class yeah yeah oh that's cool man see ron oh you also run the gyms you have people that run them so i run the gyms with other instructors a couple of guys that you know came up through the ranks with me and uh i'm currently at brown belt right now under uh christian woodman see and he's a autist black belt from his gems in philly so logic and then uh just all over the place man i've trained with all the autos guys jt torres andre uh galbo and then i just had uh my buddy nassar he's one of the hq black belts out he came out and we had him for a seminar hung out with him about four or five days oh that's cool huh get some training in and good times but yeah andy's jim's pressure bjj and harrisonburg but now with me i love it my daughter is five now so she she's always yeah she's all about it yeah it's a great community yeah so i love the kids class adults class we know we just come together and have a good time yeah it was funny i was in uh that's awesome man and and congrats on just staying so uh entrepreneurial that's one thing i find that's always interesting in people is how do you get entrepreneurial you know how where does that come from i just i think uh you know certain certain drives you know i'm not i'm not working a typical nine to five job like yourself you're not doing you know you're doing your thing grinding it out and um i'm always taking on you know i get get a bunch of crap but you know she she supports me on everything i do but i do take on a lot of projects you know i'm doing thermal shelter i'm building a homeless shower trailer right now um for animals or people for people for the thermal shelter for the homeless here in my town uh homeless how many people live in the town it's not like you probably have it's like 11 homeless yeah it's probably like you probably get about 25 or so oh that's fair then yeah we got a population of 40 50 000 people oh wow that's a nice size so it's not not too bad we get a lot of dc people move out and it's a pretty place to live i bet huh it's gorgeous mountains uh rivers there you got i mean the tourism aspect there you know that we had uh we call them leafers they just come there to skyline drive they want to see they want to see the leaves and you're talking about they're backed all the way back up 66 for miles yeah it'll mess up it turns our traffic into uh 495 baltimore style traffic for for those few weekends of the year yeah we were just riding through like uh vermont and some other places and the best part we got a tour bus for the first time rented a tour bus yeah it was real interesting but i got to sit in the back and have the window open it's like man you just get to see the lee we're just cruising through leaf areas you know you see all these leaf people and like the wife's got you know the shirt made just completely out of the she's got all these leaves hooked on her shirt yeah damn scarecrow you'll see them yank off side of the red about run you off just get a picture they're like i'm going to take a picture yeah every five miles new pitcher is there like an albino turkey that happens is there any like interesting pigmentation that happened with a rare bird where you get a completely white or black or no blue turkey is there anything interesting like that no our birds are you know a nicholas or a hybrid style bird and they're always going to be a white white feathered bird and nothing nothing out of the norm now wild turkeys you have different subspecies and they'll crossbreed mainly you know out west where the marionette marion and the rio kind of pops out a hybrid looking bird right but uh you ever eaten peacock or anything like that i won't say nothing no i ain't ain't no peacock i thought about that yeah i am [Laughter] i've thought about it i will eat some one day i'm just gonna be honest yeah so i don't want to say i'm nodding a lot everybody that's good stuff right here i hear good things yeah look i mean look it's a bird yeah look if it looks like that i'm gonna have a little that's all i'm saying um robert up man thank you so much for being here with us man i really appreciate it i definitely appreciate it oh i got you some swag from the farm in the jiu jitsu gym oh i need a new hat so i got that uh it's a brand build all my stuff yeah they're cool company huh yeah man they do awesome work they do they've been doing real well they sent us something a while back nice of them how's your meal from there's a farm yeah that's the farm there you hang baby there's an extra medium you find your extra video i've never seen that you got a medium there if you find your girl down there okay so what's up i got the turkey i like them baby you know you know how i like them dude at least 16 weeks yeah yes sir uh robert huffman thank you so much for coming in dude this is really a just a nice gift man i know with with uh thanksgiving time people aren't thinking about turkeys and stuff do native americans ever look at you as like the bad like do you ever get billed as like the bad guy for doing turkey thing that's in my face i mean i got some native american family members so we're the the virginia tribes they they still give a uh a turkey and a deer to the governor every year oh wow but uh no really yeah it's pretty remarkable if you look that up they'll still do that uh um it's like an annual since there's no reservations or anything in virginia you know there's just what's left of us in the that area you know my uh family members they do the pow wows and they'll do nate uh you have native american family members yes i got some that are married in and you know they uh they treat me you know they're awesome so i mean i don't have uh i don't think they're really worried about nobody's coming at you like you're like pilgrim no no yeah i didn't think no you never know what's going on out there man you never know but yeah everybody's everybody's kosher with me i try to do my thing help people do good stuff yeah it sounds like it man yeah congrats on running a cool small business man and uh and and uh in a big industry yeah and just you know it's fascinating to learn and how much it costs to start and yeah it's been a real interesting conference conversation for me man i appreciate your time yeah i appreciate you having me there and you know i do tours with the 4-h kids get them involved kind of give them that that info on that industry and uh oh yeah my sister has a little bunny name i don't know what his name was uh i think his name was denver or something but he won they won something they keep him pretty clean but i wish he kept their damn house cleaner that thing is a damn trap dog god dang dude i said the lord ain't gonna show up in here if this place is dirty i said he's just not doing it you know but um yeah we'll put the links to some of the stuff that you're doing man so people can check it out um one other thing i do a hunting uh youth day every year for kids and like i was telling them i take six six kids maximum uh from everywhere from new jersey atlanta they come out and i partnered with my best friend tj he's a vp of the black american outdoorsman they got a pretty good-sized following and we bring them out give them all their swag they get hunting gear it's a black hunting group yeah like but yeah they have america man yeah yeah it's for everyone yeah they got some cool groups out there dude i see on tick tock some black hunter dudes sometimes yeah just because i never growing up i never saw that you know but now you see a lot more uh i just had never seen it but anyway yeah it's getting no man everybody loves to hunt yeah everybody loves a lot of people do and and the better we are at introducing new people um it's just going to be good for our industry and our sport for the the hunting aspect and the outdoors and the main is goals try to save as much land that we can for not only farming but you know certain places just need to go look at yeah we only have pictures like that that we can pull up and and yeah if we don't take care of certain land you know um it's funny because even we went and looked in uh chattanooga a couple months ago we were doing a show over there so we went out to the there you can see some of the river and stuff there and and now there's more factories in the distance so even the scenery there it's just getting a little bit more did you guys go up on the cliff yeah we went up on one of them i don't remember which one it was but yeah but it's just interesting we don't think about all that you know and until today we do and i don't think what turkey but it looks like it'd be a turkey farmer so i'll see that picture it's funny you just don't know until you have some introduction so thank you yeah for introducing us to some stuff today man now i'm super excited to be here thanks man yeah appreciate it man you guys be well and happy thanksgiving to you yep thanks but when i find it i'll patch up where it's been blown now i'm just floating on the breeze and i feel i'm falling like these leaves i must be cornerstone [Music] [Music] a little time for me to set that parking brake and let myself on my heart shine that light on me i'll sit and tell you my stories [Music] [Music] and now i've been moving way too fast on the runaway train with a heavy load of my [Music] now

Channel: Theo Von

Views: 238,389

Keywords: Theo Von, This Past Weekend, TPW, comedy, podcast, comedian, interview, talk show, stand-up, stand-up comedy, thanksgiving, turkey, turkey farmer

Id: NTBY15cxUQI

Length: 89min 9sec (5349 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 18 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/UndergroundGrizzly]

With the exception of Shane Gillis I think these 'average person' podcasts are way better than the rest.

[u/chzboi]

I’m so excited to listen to this. Theo has the best guests

[u/Orangutan]

Robert Hupman is a turkey farmer and the owner of Hazard Mill Farms in Virginia. Theo and Robert talk about all things turkey; what it's like to farm and harvest them, his family history of farming and his love of jiu jitsu.

Hazard Mill Farm FB: https://www.facebook.com/Hazard-Mill-Farms-122182925136515/

[u/fast_hand84]

Damn, he seems like a great dude…super nice and genuine as fuck.

I really enjoy listening to people who are passionate about seemingly obscure things.

[u/RockinRhombus]

Just listened, love the insight to that turkey life. Also props to the callers with the creative questions.

[u/most_triumphant_yeah]

This was a high quality episode

[u/ImperialTravesty]

Bruh that's Ethan Klein.

[u/elzey93]

Robert seems like such a great dude. Cares about his community and feeding America! Gang!