TURKEYS: Most of us will be sitting in front of a grand dinner on Thursday. Dishes of stuffing, yams, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans, pies and myriad other dishes arranged around a centerpiece of America’s favorite November meat: a turkey.
When we think of turkeys, many other images come to mind: pilgrims and Native Americans, family members and football games, hunters seated quietly in trees, waiting for a flock of the delicious fowl to scoot by. But we certainly don’t think of science.
According to Penn State University, for people like Mike Hulet, an associate professor of animal science in the university’s Poultry Education and Research Center (PERC), a modern turkey is “also the culmination of the science and technology that go into raising a better turkey.”
A press release from the university describes the research center: “Surrounded by a border of locust and Austrian pine trees, the PERC consists of six separate buildings that house turkeys and other poultry for education and research. The vegetative barrier is used to help filter any possible odor, dust, feathers and noise emitted from the poultry operations, and each house is fully computerized and environmentally controlled.”
And the optimum temperature, according to Hulet, is between 68 and 70 degrees.
Lighting in the turkey house is carefully regulated, too.
At PERC, the eggs from artificially inseminate turkeys are placed in an incubator where everything from heating/cooling, humidity and ventilation are controlled based on the need. They are turned every hour.
Penn State shared 2011 statistics from the National Turkey Federation on the number of turkeys raised in the United States. According to the federation, 248.5 millions turkeys were raised in the U.S. that year, with 7.5 million raised in Pennsylvania alone.
HELPING HAND: When The Era’s own associate editor Marcie Schellhammer was outside dealing with a flat tire after leaving work late Monday night, an on-duty Bradford City police officer stopped to lend a hand.
Seeing she was in distress, Sgt. Butch Bartlett went to find equipment to help her pump her tire in the snow.
Nothing like a helping hand in a time of trouble.
