Cooper Farm Provided This Year's Presidential Pardon Turkeys

NY Daily News:

Cole Cooper built a special barn at the family farm in Fort Recovery, Ohio, where he housed an initial presidential flock of 66 turkeys representing four breeds: bronze, blue slates, Spanish blacks and broad breasted whites.
Cooper Farms raises 5 million turkeys year-round to help supply the average 16.5 pounds of turkey consumed per person in the U.S. each year. The Thanksgiving and Christmas season accounts for 35% to 40% of annual turkey sales, primarily of whole birds, but Cooper Farms stays busy all year selling sliced deli meat, turkey burgers and other turkey products.

With this expertise, Cooper launched a specialized grooming process that included exposing the birds to a variety of musical styles — country crooner Kenny Chesney is among Cole’s favorites — and getting them accustomed to humans by inviting visitors to the farm and acclimating them to travel by transporting the animals to nearby events in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Columbus.
Cooper's 1-year-old son, Chase, even pitched in to prepare the flock for the jungles of Washington by screaming and chasing the birds about.
The farmer slowly whittled down the initial group of 66 to six finalists now in contention for the job, but he says there are three birds — all broad breasted whites — that stand out in his mind.
“I’ve got three in there that are my really close candidates — the feathering is right, they look good, stand tall and are full of color.”

Cooper raises an amazing number of turkeys in west central Ohio.  A little more about the Presidential pardon from the article:

The NTF began gifting the President with a turkey during President Truman’s administration. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush began the tradition of offering a formal pardon to the bird.
Since 2010, after receiving their commuted sentences, the National Turkeys were shipped to Mount Vernon, Va., to live out their final years.
This year they will retire to Morven Park in Leesburg, Va.
But the birds' post-pardoning lifespans are often short. Since Thanksgiving turkeys are bred for consumption, their extreme weight produces health complications.
Only one of the 2013 turkeys, Popcorn and Caramel, is still living. Popcorn died of natural causes in July, but Caramel remains, thanks to a weight-loss regimen.

 America's obesity epidemic definitely includes livestock.