Those raised for Thanksgiving hatch in June, Owen says.

Despite their differences, Doug Owen and Jo Baker are part of an increasingly rare breed themselves, the American family farmer.

Both oversee the rearing process personally and both sell their dead birds primarily to those in their respective communities.

Also, both Owen and Baker encourage prospective customers to view the birds as they grow older and fatter. Owen's farm includes a section designated for petting the animals, which include rabbits, cows, pigs, chickens and goats, as well as turkeys.

Besides their relatively tame demeanor, domestic animals make life a lot easier on food providers like Owen and Baker.

An attempt to raise wild turkeys for last year's Thanksgiving proved a failure, Baker says.

Beside several incidents of near escape--these birds do fly--the turkeys failed to gain enough weight and presented particular cleaning problems during the de-feathering process.

Discouraged by their results with wild turkeys, the Bakers returned to the more traditional domestic fare this year and raised one tom which reached 27 pounds by the week of Thanksgiving.

Perhaps even more impressive among this year's turkey crop nationwide, however, was one exceptionally lucky 55-pound tom.

As Owen planned ahead for Christmas sales, as Baker reflected on the relative quiet of a Pilot Hill Farm without its singing turkeys and as millions of Americans planned their Thanksgiving dinners, this particular turkey headed not for the dinner table but for the White House.

In the annual ceremony, President Bush petted the seemingly uninterested bird and exercised his power of pardon, thus sparing one imposing tom the grim fate he might have known.

Instead of the pen, the Rose Garden; instead of the slaughterhouse, the petting zoo; instead of the death edict, the presidential pardon. For at least one turkey this Thanksgiving season, there really was reason to give thanks.