WINTHROP - If you want to serve a fresh turkey for Christmas dinner, you better have one lined up or you may be out of luck.

Most turkeys sold in grocery stores are frozen, but some have a small inventory of fresh turkeys.

A fresh turkey has never been stored below 26 degrees. Unlike a frozen turkey, it doesn't have to be thawed but should be purchased only one or two days before cooking, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Robert Bills, meat manager at Fareway, 3300 10th Ave., Marion, says his store sells fresh turkeys during the holiday season. He received a small shipment last week and will receive the last batch Dec. 22.

“We only order so many in; when they are gone, they're gone,” he says.

While frozen turkeys remain the best sellers, Bills says fresh turkeys are becoming more and more popular with customers.

“They are more of a natural turkey,” he says.

Another way to get a fresh turkey is to know somebody who raises them.

John and Ann Slattery have raised turkeys on a family farm near Winthrop for eight years. They have the turkeys processed and give them to friends and family at Thanksgiving.

“We never had fresh turkeys until John started raising them,” says Mary Donlea, of Winthrop. “They are so moist. Once you've had a fresh turkey, it's hard to go back.”

Carol Burke, of Manchester, takes comfort in knowing the turkey she serves to her family was raised just down the road.

“You know where it's from and how it was raised,” she says.

Besides being moist and tender, fresh turkeys cook faster than thawed frozen ones. Becky Dolan, of Manchester, learned this the first time she cooked a fresh turkey.

She got a 44-pound turkey from the Slatterys in 2001. Thinking it would take longer to cook, she put it in the oven at 2 a.m. Thanksgiving Day to make sure it would be done by dinnertime.

“I had 35 people coming for dinner,” she recalls.

Much to her surprise, she was awakened at 6 a.m. by the smell of turkey.

“It was pretty much done then,” she says.

Most of the turkeys Slattery raises are toms (male) and weigh between 35 and 45 pounds.

This year Dan and Kathy Swift of Manchester took home a 42-pounder for Thanksgiving dinner.

“We have big eaters at the Swift house,” Kathy Swift says.

The Slatterys raise just enough turkeys each year to give out for Thanksgiving. They distributed 18 processed turkeys at a gathering at their Winthrop home two days before Thanksgiving. The annual event was extra special as it is the last year the Slatterys will raise turkeys.

“Usually we just have cocktails,” Ann Slattery says. “But since this is the last year, we're going all out and having a meal.”

The end of the Slatterys' turkey operation coincides with the closing of Urbana Poultry Processing near Urbana, where many turkeys in Eastern Iowa are processed.

“The novelty wore off,” says Bob Briggs, who owns Urbana Poultry Processing with his wife, Cindy.

After the holiday season ends, the Briggses will shut down the business they've ran for 20 years.

Briggs, who retired from the postal service last year, says regulations for poultry processors are strict. Each bird must be inspected at the plant to receive the State of Iowa Mark of Inspection. The Urbana plant had a Custom Exempt Poultry Slaughter license, meaning the birds are not inspected and poultry processed there cannot be sold.

In Eastern Iowa there are exempt poultry plants in Ackley and Fort Atkinson, a state-inspected plant in Greene and a federal-inspected plant in Decorah. Briggs suspects his bigger customers will take their poultry somewhere else. His smaller customers, like Slattery, may stop raising poultry because they don't want to travel farther to have the birds processed.