Farm turkeys have a place waiting (hint: not Harvard)

''Human babies aren't that smart, either,'' he says.

Fair enough. These turkeys are pretty young. Mr. Tewes and his brother, Tom, own and operate Tewes Poultry Farm, a Northern Kentucky institution dating back more than 50 years. You don't stay in business that long selling folks geriatric turkeys for Thanksgiving.

None of the babbling, gobbling, squawking birds on the Tewes farm will live to turkey adulthood. None will live much longer than 5 months. In human years, they wouldn't be old enough to drive a car. Which is good.

Ever notice how small their heads are?

Assuming they could reach the pedals, could they pass the driving test anywhere but in Indiana?

IQs unknown

But she does venture this:

''They always say they're pretty dumb.''

None of the turkeys on the Tewes farm does tricks. None makes lots of money or has a trainer. Here in the land of horse farms, this is a no-frills business, quick-and-dirty.

Catch 'em, cut 'em, string 'em up, scald 'em.

They arrive here on the farm, more than 3,000 strong, in June and July: Day-old turkey chicks. That's when it all starts. ''Ain't much to do the first half of the year,'' Mr. Tewes says.

This time of year more than makes up for it, though. The Teweses are swamped. If you want to place an order, be prepared to let the phone ring a good, long time.

And call soon. By the end of the day Wednesday, only 300 or 400 turkeys will remain - the inventory for Christmas sales.

Mr. Tewes spent the morning and early afternoon Saturday and last Wednesday killing turkeys to fill the Thanksgiving orders.

He wears knee-high rubber boots and rubber gloves when he wades into the coops. The turkeys are kept separate in three groups: 5-month-old toms, of which there are about 300; 5-month-old hens, of which there are about 1,000; and younger turkeys, up to 4 months old, of which there are about 1,500.

They might be mental lightweights, but these turkeys make for a hefty meal. Tewes birds are fine and plump and meaty - far better than anything you might find at the grocery. The toms grow up to 50 pounds, the hens up to 30.

Mr. Tewes hands me a live, 50-pound tom upside-down by the legs. It just hangs there. My 4-year-old little girl weighs less than this.

Heart of tradition

Carefully, I hand the bird back to Mr. Tewes, and he turns it loose on the ground.

Less than 15 feet away, cows stare impassively at the chaos in the turkey coop. The birds wander about, wing-to-wing, warbling incessantly. The cows stare. The birds warble. The cows stare. The birds warble. There's some serious thinking not going on here.

The chatter of doomed birds is all around. For Turkey Lurkey, the sky is falling. It's a week before Thanksgiving, and one of the first snows of the season is coming down in icy pellets on the Tewes farm.

Outside the coop, a white feather floats on the bitter, autumn air, lighter than the snow, floating, floating, floating.

What they're selling here at Tewes isn't poultry. It's memories.

In a few minutes, Dr. J.M. Huey of Walton, a retired country doctor who once made house calls for $2.50, will arrive for about the 50th year in a row to pick up the turkey he ordered. It's a 16-pound hen that was just wandering around making noise 24 hours earlier, before she went and lost her head over the good doctor Huey.

Oh, so many orders to fill. Mr. Tewes reaches for one of the blue-headed toms, but it backs away quickly.

OK, OK. Maybe turkeys aren't so dumb.

Rob Kaiser is The Enquirer's Kentucky columnist. His column appears regularly on Sundays and Thursdays in The Kentucky Enquirer. He can be reached at 578-5584.

Published Nov. 24, 1996.