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Slideshow: Raising turkeys on pasture fills a consumer demand.

Mindy Ward, Editor, Missouri Ruralist

November 1, 2017

12 Slides

Matt Tiefenbrun knows that free-range turkey production is not for everyone. He also admits his style of growing birds will not meet the demand for 68 million turkeys this holiday season. However, it will satisfy a particular consumer palate.

Tiefenbrun, along with his wife Eleanor, operate Buttonwood Farm in central Missouri. There, on 10 acres, the couple raises 2,500 birds for Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays. Roughly, 1,400 will be sold as whole birds, while the others will be harvested and frozen for future sales.

Buttonwood Farm started just seven years ago. Today, it offers free-range turkeys and pasture-raised chicken to consumers. The couple also maintains a commercial cow-calf herd.

Tiefenbrun, who grew up in the metropolitan area of St. Louis, received most of his training by working at the poultry farm at the University of Missouri, Columbia. The rest came from trying out management practices on his farm.

Check out his farm and turkey production practices in the gallery above.

About the Author(s)

Mindy Ward

Editor, Missouri Ruralist

Mindy resides on a small farm just outside of Holstein, Mo, about 80 miles southwest of St. Louis.

After graduating from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a bachelor’s degree in agricultural journalism, she worked briefly at a public relations firm in Kansas City. Her husband’s career led the couple north to Minnesota.

There, she reported on large-scale production of corn, soybeans, sugar beets, and dairy, as well as, biofuels for The Land. After 10 years, the couple returned to Missouri and she began covering agriculture in the Show-Me State.

“In all my 15 years of writing about agriculture, I have found some of the most progressive thinkers are farmers,” she says. “They are constantly searching for ways to do more with less, improve their land and leave their legacy to the next generation.”

Mindy and her husband, Stacy, together with their daughters, Elisa and Cassidy, operate Showtime Farms in southern Warren County. The family spends a great deal of time caring for and showing Dorset, Oxford and crossbred sheep.

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