March 18, 2024

Annual third-grade field day held

This year at the annual third-grade field day, the class had Kelli Price, Jaime Shaw, Peter Kazery and Zach Mathes visit from Valley of the Moon Turkey Hatchery, the world’s largest turkey hatchery located in Osceola. These volunteers brought along information about turkeys and a speckled turkey egg and baby turkeys for the students to get an opportunity to touch and hold.

The students learned that baby turkeys are called poults. They have four toes on each foot, but many turkey growers want the dew claw removed, as well as the snood, which is done by a microwave machine. A newly hatched turkey can survive for 72 hours without food or water, and it normally takes 28 days for a fertile turkey egg to hatch.

Valley of the Moon has shipped baby turkeys to Ecuador, China and Canada, as well as many places in the U.S. The students looked inside a temperature-controlled semi that carries baby turkeys all over the country. A semi can carry 50,000 poults comfortably. They also felt grow gel that is used to feed the poults if they have to travel longer than the three days their yolk maintains them. Approximately 180,000 poults are hatched four days per week with Wednesday being their day off to clean.

The information was interesting for all ages and the third-graders enjoyed seeing and holding the baby turkeys.