Ken Douthit has rhythm, and he shows it while caring for his seven-day-old turkey poults. Turkeys are naturally curious animals, which sometimes results in their piling up while looking at something or trying to reach something. This can lead to large death loss. To avoid this, Ken Douthit always pauses to clap and herd the turkey poults back up the rings before he leaves his barns. The poults have been following him questionably to the end of the ring, where they started bunching together, until Ken started his display of rhythm.
Care and creativity are what it takes to keep such a large farm running. Along with his wife Gloria, Ken had 110 acres near Elkins, Ark., in the White River Watershed. Ken and Gloria have two separate turkey farms that they originally purchased about five years ago. They grow hens for Cargill Turkey Products, LLC. The Middlefork farm has three houses, one brooder and two grow out houses. There is a 300-foot and a 600-foot grow out house. The brood house is 400-feet. Across the field the Douthit farm also has the same setup. Prior to growing for Cargill, the Douthit’s had a brooder hen farm for Tyson’s. They changed from growing for Tyson’s when as Ken said, “The rock quarry at Spring Valley bought us out, they kept blowing our wells dry. We weren’t ready to retire yet, so we checked around. We checked with Cargill, and they told us about this farm, which was originally separate farms.”
With two farms close together, disease control is a constant on Ken and Gloria’s minds. “I keep the two farms separated. If I have to go farm to farm I change shoes. I have shoes, shoes and more shoes. I have Middlefork shoes, Douthit shoes, shoes to go to the brood house. Whatever I’m working that day, those are the shoes I wear. If we have a disease problem, I come in and take a shower and change before going to the other farm, which is a standard procedure for Cargill. We’ve been successful at keeping the two separate. Cross contamination is something you always have to keep in mind though," he said.
The sheer volume of birds keeps the Douthits and their hired hands very busy. “We run five and a half batches; we get between 19,000 to 20,000 birds per batch. Right now we’re brooding babies in some pretty hot weather, which is a challenge,” Ken said. When heat indexes climb the Douthits must be taking extra care with the young poults.
Both Gloria and Ken grew up in Northwest Arkansas but they didn’t start out as farmers. “We came to farming because Gloria had a whim basically. One day she got mad at the boss, and she said, okay I’m going to buy a farm. Neither of us had ever lived on a farm. In two weeks time she had the brooder farm bought. She’s a tough, determined woman.”
The Douthits had the largest brooder hen complex in the Springdale, Ark., complex Tyson’s had at that time. We grew for them for 16 years, and we were grower of the year several times.” Ken noted that Gloria also likes to tell about another reason for going into farming. “She always tells the story about me taking a few customers to South Texas deer hunting. I ended up with a little pig, and brought it home because its mother had died. We raised it up, and she jokes that we bought the farm so that Miss Piggy would have a place to live.” In addition to the farm, Ken and Gloria also deliver papers for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, for whom Gloria was the first carrier in the northwest Arkansas area 28 years ago.
The switch from chickens to turkeys after selling the farm to the quarry was a new challenge for Ken and Gloria. Ken said, “Turkey and chickens are totally different, I guarantee I learned a lot on this change over. Cargill always backs me up though. If I need tech support they get out here to help me.”
Despite having not started out as farmers, after having raised chickens, turkeys, horses and cattle on their piece of paradise, the Douthits never regret making the choice to get into the business. The pride they have in their work is evident and they plan on keeping the farms going for the foreseeable future.
