The Luxurious Lives of the Turkeys Getting a Presidential Pardon

We all know where most turkeys end up on Thanksgiving. But for a lucky pair, a presidential pardon will save them from the table. 

The presidential turkey pardon is a wacky American tradition that some historians date back to President Harry Truman. The chairman of the National Turkey Federation, an organization that advocates on behalf of the turkey industry, gets the opportunity to oversee the presidential flock, and for current chair John Zimmerman, raising the birds is an “honor.”

And while they might not realize it, it’s an honor for the two lucky birds as well: “There's some 40 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving,” says Zimmerman, a second-generation turkey farmer based in Northfield, Minn. “Only two are pardoned.”  

Zimmerman represents the more than 2,500 turkey farms across the U.S. and raises some 4 million pounds of turkeys annually. But the lives of the birds heading for a presidential pardon are particularly luxurious. The turkeys, who have been raised on polka music and AC/DC, per Zimmerman, will also be given an opulent overnight experience during their stay at the Willard InterContinental, just a few blocks from the White House, in Washington, D.C.

TIME talked to Zimmerman by phone in mid-November about raising the birds and the special treatment they get when they’re chosen for the presidential pardon. The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

TIME: Do you know when the presidential turkey pardon tradition began?

Zimmerman: The Truman Administration was the first year that the National Turkey Federation presented a turkey to the President. Obviously, at that time, the bird was meant to be consumed. Prior to that, for the history of a President pardoning the turkey, people will go back to Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was gifted a turkey and his son, Tad, pleaded with his father to not kill the turkey and made it into a pet. That's where the pardoning comes from. But George Bush Sr. was the first president to officially pardon the bird. Over time, they've been sent to petting zoos. For a while, they were sent to Disney World and they were in the parade.

When did you start raising this particular presidential flock?

These birds hatched in the middle of July. They'll be roughly 18 weeks during the week of Thanksgiving, fully grown males at that time. 

Why do you have to grow that specific flock separate from the rest of them?

Because the birds are going to be at the pardoning ceremony on the South Lawn, and there's people wandering around, kids yelling and screaming, flash bulbs going off, and we have to take the turkey and set it up on the table. 

Obviously we don't want the turkey to flap around and scratch the President or anyone else, so we have to make sure these birds are acclimated to being around people. They're not pets by any stretch of the imagination. Every day, we go in there and we interact with them more. We pick them up, we make sure their feathers are good and clean. We're trying to get them used to people, used to the spotlight. We play music for them, make sure they're exposed to different lighting so if a photographer comes up and snaps a picture and there's a flash, we don't want them to get scared and flap away, because there have been instances over the years where a bird's gotten a little unruly and flapped the President or someone else. Obviously we don't want that to happen, so we're just trying to make them calm and a little bit more docile for the presentation at the White House.

Can you talk a bit more about the process of picking the presidential pardon turkeys? 

We started with a flock of 44. You really don't start doing a selection process until the last three or four weeks, but it's based on the temperament of the birds. There are some birds that are more aggressive than others. Obviously, you want a bird that's not afraid of people, but you also don't want a bird that's going to come up and attack you. 

At the pardoning ceremony, we normally place the turkey up onto a table, so you want a bird that's going to be able to sit on that table and not flap around and be agitated. So we put them on a table and just see how long they'll sit there. And then [we consider] their plumage. Birds with nicer feathers have a leg up on the other ones. I have 20-some left, and it's basically down to which ones have the nicest feathers and are the best looking birds. And from those, we'll pick the top two to take the D.C.

What kind of special treatment do they get? 

Chairmen from previous years, we always give tips and tricks to each other, and some years they say, ‘Oh, they like country music better. They like rock music better.’ I'm more of a classic rock guy, so we started them out on classic rock. But being from a rural area, there's a couple polka [radio] channels out there, so on certain days, we'll listen to polka, and they've listened to country. It's just to get them used to background noises. 

We also have a little projector that projects laser beams on the wall that are synced to the music, a kind of a pulsating disco type of thing, and it's all about getting them used to sudden movements, sudden sounds, flash bulbs, having kids come up and interact with the birds. 

I know some people even brought their pets in there so they're used to pets. But it's all in an effort to make sure they're going to be docile birds and not get frightened when they're on the big stage. 

I found personally that there's no specific music they really like, but I did have my son actually pick a station on our Alexa smart speaker to play patriotic music, and I think Taps and Reveille came on, and they really perked up when they heard bugle music. I don't know if it's the tone or the pitch of a bugle, but they all started gobbling to that. Then we had the idea, maybe we can get them to gobble on cue, to Hail to the Chief. So we've been working on that, but we haven't had much success.

That's so exciting. In terms of the rock music that you played for them, is there a particular artist that you tried out?

I'm a fan of AC/DC and Metallica, so they get a heavy dose of that. There hasn't been one specific thing that they've shown more interest in than another, other than other than the bugle or the trumpet music.

Do you have any idea what you would name those two birds?

I do not get to name the birds. At the Minnesota State Fair, we had a naming contest, and at some agricultural leadership meetings we had a box for people to submit names. We will submit those names to President [Biden], but ultimately, it's the President's job to name the birds. Last year, he picked Liberty and Bell. Pop and Corn, Caramel and Corn, Peas and Carrots, Chocolate and Chip have been some of the names in the past. 

At what point will you know which pair you're going to be bringing to the White House? 

They're driven out in a minivan [to D.C.] It's a 16-hour drive. We put the birds in the back of the minivan on a bed of shavings, and they're kind of free roaming in the vehicle. [Someone] will pick them up several days before the ceremony. And I would think that less than 24 hours before then, we'll probably pick the final two. 

What happens to the turkeys that don't end up being picked for the presidential pardon, but are part of that flock that you raised?

They'll be processed and consumed, just like all other turkeys. As we say, there's some 40 million turkeys eaten on Thanksgiving. Only two are pardoned.

Where do the birds go after the presidential pardon? 

When the President pardons someone, their lives are spared, and you have to find a home for them. The forever home for this year's presidential turkeys will be Farmamerica. It's based in Waseca, Minn., and it's Minnesota's agricultural interpretive center. It's a place where consumers and school kids and the general public can interact with the history of agriculture in Minnesota and also learn more about how their food is raised. So the birds will live out their life there, on one of their exhibits, and hopefully allow consumers to learn a little bit more about where their food comes from.