LET’S TALK TURKEY
Area farm ready for Thanksgiving
"I thought I’d get a small place to putter around on. It’s taken on a life of its own. We’re up to 35 acres now." — New York City native Lubna Dabbagh
SALEM, N.Y. » Turkeys at Blind Buck Farm are greatly outnumbered by the dozens of sheep and goats on hand.
With Thanksgiving coming up, the fowl also face a grim future.
But their sacrifice is greatly appreciated and sure to put smiles on people’s faces.
“I know they’re going to a good cause,” said Phil Petruska, farm manager. “I’ll make sure any table they’re at, prayers get said first. They will definitely be enjoyed.”
New York City native Lubna Dabbagh purchased the farm, her country dream home, shortly after visiting Washington County several years ago. A knitting enthusiast, she fell in love with the area’s many fiber farms and decided to start one of her own.
“I thought I’d get a small place to putter around on,” Dabbagh said. “It’s taken on a life of its own. We’re up to 35 acres now.”
In addition to fiber-producing animals, she also raises ducks, chickens and guinea hens and added turkeys to the mix three years ago.
“They all like to hang out together,” she said.
Business quite often takes her to fiber festivals throughout the region. In her absence, she entrusts her feathered friends to Petruska’s care.
“Turkeys are surprisingly more friendly than most birds,” he said. “They’re the first ones following you into the feeding area. When they see you coming, they run right over and wait for you to feed them, like a puppy almost.”
Dabbagh’s journey from city girl to farm owner included stops all over the planet. In New York, her father, a Saudi Arabian diplomat, was a member of his country’s mission to the United Nations. While growing up, Dabbagh also lived in Taiwan, Japan, Italy and Switzerland.
And her mother is Eqyptian, so family vacations were quite often spent at her grandfather’s farm in that North African country, a land of pyramids with the Nile River flowing through it. “He raised a little bit of everything from sheep to cotton,” Dabbagh said.
She’s adopted a slow, steady approach to raising turkeys, learning the best way to do things before taking on large numbers. This year she plans to sell about a dozen for Thanksgiving, with hopes of raising three to four times that many within several years.
Poults are purchased when they’re a day old, and come through the mail from Cooper’s Ark Farm in Schoharie, and Murray McMurray Hatchery in Iowa. Upon arrival, they’re kept under cover, warmed with a heat lamp, and fed a starter crumble with extra vitamins plus warm honey water.
As the birds grow and the weather improves, they’re moved to larger quarters and eventually allowed to roam free. At night, however, they’re put in a spacious cage with a wire covering to keep them from getting out and falling prey to predators such as foxes and coyotes.
Turkeys are the obvious highlight of Thanksgiving dinner tables, but are becoming increasingly popular throughout the year, said Phil Metzger, Cooper’s Ark Farm owner.
“It’s a great family meal, especially in today’s economy,” he said. “A large turkey can provide five meals. It can be used for turkey salad, soup, sausage, sandwiches and tacos.”
However, on the fourth Thursday in November, Petruska only wants it served one way.
“There has to be mashed potatoes and gravy,” he said. “As long as there’s gravy on the table everything else takes a back seat.”