Talking turkey with poultry farmers

By JEFF STITT

jstitt@yourmvi.com

Vicki Olexa likes dark turkey meat.

“I like the white meat,” said her husband Mike.

“Dark meat is so much better,” Vicki exclaimed.

The age-old debate of which is tastier can’t be settled at the Matt Helon Farm in Washington Township, Fayette County.

The couple, who took over running the farm when Vickie’s father, Matt Helon, passed away, have worked together raising turkeys, poultry chickens and pigs for nearly 40 years. They also used to raise cows. 

Vicki has spent her whole life on the farm. Her dad founded the farm in 1957 because he had a love of turkeys and pigs, according to Vicki, who has helped look after the animals since she was a youngster. 

“I helped my dad side by side,” Vicki said. “He died 25 years ago and I promised him I would always keep turkeys, so it’s a tradition and we’re trying to keep it going.”

After all those years, the Olexa and Helon families know more than just a thing or two about the official bird of American Thanksgiving.

The Olexas raised 265 turkeys this year. The majority of the birds were slaughtered this past weekend and packaged and distributed to customers Monday.

“We saved like 10 or 12 who’ve got a presidential pardon until Christmas,” Vicki said, adding that the remaining birds will be processed and given to loved ones to use for their Christmas dinners. 

The couple said around 280 turkeys arrived in the mail as tiny, “fragile” chicks in July.

Mike said the chicks were about the size of an adult’s thumb.

“Their little legs are like toothpicks and you have to maintain the heat very carefully for the first couple weeks,” Vicki said. “It was a little bit of a tough year because the weather was so hot. You lose the most in the first week because they’re fragile.

“… It’s a lot of keeping the temperature. We put heat lamps on when they first come. Even though it’s the middle of July and it’s stifling, there’s a 30 degree difference sometimes between 11 o’clock at night because it’s down to maybe 60 (degrees) and in the middle of the day, it’s 90 so, that’s a big difference, especially for a little tiny body.”

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