Rural students learning agriculture and business skills by raising turkeys to sell this Thanksgiving

High school and middle school students in a rural Kentucky county are attaining agricultural skills, while learning to run a business that will provide Thanksgiving turkeys, Cheryl Truman reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader. Students in animal classes in Harrison County have been raising 46 turkeys on more than 80 acres of farmland near the school. (Herald-Leader photo by Mark Cornelison)

Students, who have been with the turkeys since they hatched in July, taught the turkeys "to eat, drink and get grit into their diets. They clipped their wings to make sure they did not fly away. They provided them with clean bedding and made sure they stayed safe from roaming coyotes." This week the turkeys will be taken to Kentucky State University to be processed and sold to customers.

Last year, the class donated 19 birds to a food pantry, Truman writes "But this year, the students have gone into the business of selling them, since their teachers want them to learn not just farm skills but how to best present and package the resulting product and become entrepreneurs." Students have also "been in charge of doing market research and marketing the birds, including Facebook pages and other social media." (Family Search map: Harrison County)