Restoring town’s turkey theme—sort of

Longtime Ramona chicken farmer Joe Cebe Sr. would love to restore the community’s reputation as the turkey capital of the world, but you can’t raise turkeys in close proximity to chickens, so he is doing the next best thing. He’s raising them in Potrero.

Well, at least they are owned by a Ramonan.

But these are the genuine thing. They are not that white-feathered variety that fowl (sorry about that) local markets.

They are the bronze turkey, the kind that grace the covers of glossy magazines around Thanksgiving time, the ones with huge peacock-like tails, the ones the Pilgrims ate (we are told), the ones that Ben Franklin wanted to be named as the national bird instead of the bald eagle, said Cebe.

And, manifesting a slight personal bias, Cebe reminded us that “The bald eagle is a scavenger that eats dead, rotting flesh and such stuff. The turkey is a proud and magnificent bird, a phenomenal sight, absolutely magnificent.”

Cebe, who has been ranching chickens in Ramona since March of 1971, was forced into turkey ranching by a competitor who, he says, was trying to take his customers away.

“My customers were told that if they wanted to get turkeys from this competitor, then they must transfer all their other poultry business to him, as well. So my son and I decided we would give the turkeys a try,” said Cebe. “The whole experience may have turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

“Talk to 100 turkey breeders and poultry veterinarians, and they will say it is impossible to raise turkeys and chickens on the same ranch. The turkeys catch a disease that can decimate them.”

Cebe owns five chicken ranches, two in Ramona, two in Valley Center and the one in Potrero.

Fortunately, the one in Potrero is 100 acres, with half a million square feet of poultry-raising space.

“So we were able to cordon off an area that kept the chickens and the turkeys separate,” said Cebe.

Even so, he said, they expected to lose at least half the flock, or gaggle, or whatever it is turkeys gather in.

“But we only lost 4 percent, and they were extremely healthy,” said Cebe. “In fact, halfway through their growing season we had to cut back on their feed because they were growing so fast and big. Some of those toms top out over 40 pounds.”

Now it’s a matter of getting them to market because, “once the holiday passes, you lose a bundle on those babies,” said Cebe.

Will he try again next year?

“It depends. If I make a profit this year, I might try it again,” said Cebe.

Would he bring the operation to Ramona?

“No,” he said, “The danger of widespread disease is just too great.”

That was not always the case. For more than 30 years, from the 1930s through the 1950s, Ramona was justifiably known as The Turkey Capital of the World, both for turkey eggs and for eating turkeys.

In 1936, Ramona ranchers sold 1.2 million turkey eggs for 21 cents each when chicken eggs were selling for 18 cents a dozen. During the ‘30s and ‘40s, more than 1,000 turkeys a day were dressed and shipped out of the larger growers, and 10,000 poults (baby turkeys) were trucked to Utah twice each week.

And there was the turkey festival and the turkey parade with a fair in Collier Park where Mary Kay Holly Pinkard (a former secretary for the Ramona Chamber of Commerce) reigned as the turkey queen in a magnificent strapless, floor-length dress made entirely of turkey feathers.

By 1941, attendance at the fair had grown to 30,000 people, but that was essentially the final year, as the United States entered World War II that year. The fair never caught on again when the war was over, despite then President Harry Truman being presented with a Ramona turkey for Thanksgiving in 1947.

Cebe speaks of having “an unusual turkey and poultry business.” A lot of his customers, he said, are Middle Eastern or Chinese or Mexican and they insist on their poultry being absolutely fresh.

“Many of them are not accustomed to having electricity or refrigeration and their eating customs require them to get their poultry and cook and eat it right away. Some pray over the bird, others use the blood to spray the sign of a cross on the door to ward off evil spirits.

“I even came across one guy who wanted human heads—not skulls, they had to have flesh on them,” said Cebe. “I haven’t done any business with him.”