Roy B. Hawkins Sr. Suffers Loss of Turkeys
This clipping was probably from The Daily News-Record for 14 March 2007 describing events from fifty years before, when Roy B. Hawkins Sr. lost valuable turkeys to stray dogs.
Roy Sr.'s daughter Dorothy added the following information: At least one of the dogs was owned by a neighbor named Winoker. This neighbor's dog made a subsequent visit to the turkey field and Roy was forced to shoot it.
Turkey raising was big business in Rockingham County starting in the 1920s. By the 1950s, the county boasted that it was the Turkey Capital of the World. Pastures were white with free-range turkeys.
The Beltsville Small White Turkey
Beltsville White turkeys were developed at the federal research station at Beltsville, Maryland starting in the 1930s. The breed was developed to meet consumer demand for a smaller bird with a larger breast. The Beltsville White became so popular with poultry raisers and consumers that by the early 1950s millions were sold nationwide. The intense demand for Beltsville White turkeys led to overproduction and a decline from the breed standard. By the mid-1950s the breed was being replaced with the newly introduced Broad-breasted White, a larger bird which reached market size quicker. Small-scale producers like Roy Sr. continued to favor the Beltsville White as a prolific egg-layer which was nimble enough to mate naturally; the new breed was so unwieldy that it had to be artificially inseminated. Today the true Beltsville White is no longer raised commercially and is nearly extinct.
Sources:
- “Breed Profile: The Beltsville Small White Turkey” by Bonnie Meikle, FeatherSite - The Poultry Page, <http://feathersite.com/Poultry/Turkeys/BeltsBonnie.html>, viewed 15 Dec 2023.
- “Turkeys: Beltsville Small White”, author unknown, The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, <http://www.albc-usa.org/cpl/belt.html>, viewed 15 Dec 2023.
- “Beltsville Small White” <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltsville_Small_White>, viewed 15 Dec 2023.