When Lucy Dodd saw the local turkey farm was for sale it didn't take much for her to pluck up the courage to buy it.
In fact, Pooginagoric Free Range Turkeys - run by John and Robyn Watson for three decades until their retirement earlier this year - has proven a great add on to Ms Dodd's burgeoning business, Lowan Park Produce.
The biggest appeal of the eight hectare property south of Bordertown was the licensed abattoir, which has enabled Ms Dodd's pasture raised chickens to be processed locally.
"We had butchers come on board in Adelaide and Melbourne so we needed to expand but to do more birds we needed to find somewhere closer than Kapowie at Kapunda," she said.
Even though she has 4.5 years experience with poultry she says it has still been a learning curve farming turkeys.
In the lead up to her first Christmas as the new owner she says they have had far more enquiries than they could supply but with settlement only in July they have only been able to process about 3000 turkeys.
"We got some turkeys on day one of taking over but turkeys take three to four months to grow out," Ms Dodd said.
She hopes not to turn anyone away in 2024 with the goal to process and pack 15,000 turkeys and more than 20,000 meat chickens which are run at her family's farm Lowan Park about 40 kilometres away.
Lowan Park Produce began as a way for her to return to the family farm which has been in her family for almost a century.
"I always had a connection to our farm but I wasn't sure I could see myself on the farm. Running the chickens on the same land as the other livestock has given us two incomes from the same land," she said.
Ms Dodd says her previous career in environmental management has given her good business skills and she has been able to put some of the sustainable agriculture ideas into practise.
"People are looking for an ethical choice which we can provide, it feels good to be able to offer a choice for people who want to support small, independent and local farmers," she said.
Ms Dodd says she is fortunate to continue the Watsons' legacy who produced turkey not only for the festive season and Thanksgiving but made the meat a staple for many during the year, through turkey schnitzels and turkey burgers.
She hopes to continue supplying many of the butchers, pubs and restaurants across SA and Vic who bought Pooginagoric Free Range Turkeys, as well as finding new outlets.
Lowan Park Produce has a strong following at the Adelaide Hills Farmers Market and Adelaide Showground Market, where it has stalls each weekend, and Ms Dodd hopes their customers will also get a taste for turkey.
"There has been a lot of interest and happiness that the business is continuing and it has been good to keep the asset locally," she said.
"Not everyone wants seafood at heir Australian Christmas and it does look impressive having a whole turkey on the Christmas buffet."
Ms Dodd says the main difference going forward will be the opportunity for other small scale producers from the Limestone Coast and western Vic to use the abattoir.
"There are so few small scale abattoirs in SA and that is a key part of the supply chain," she said.
"Many independent poultry or other meat providers are not in existence not because they can't grow them but because they can't get them slaughtered and processed."
