Turkey farmers in South Australia have been working around the clock to get turkeys out to butchers before Christmas, but demand is outstripping their supply.
Turkey farmer John Watson owns and runs Pooginagoric Free Range Turkeys with his wife Robyn near Bordertown.
Mr Watson said staff have been doing everything they can to help fill orders.
"It's busy all the time, but this takes busy to another level to the point where it's most probably ridiculous," Mr Watson said.
"But it's just the nature of the industry, if we weren't busy now we've done something badly wrong … but it's got almost unmanageable for us now."
In an industry dominated by only a few large businesses including Inghams, Mr Watson's farm is one of the last independent turkey farms in South Australia, raising 26,000 turkeys a year on 8.5 hectares of land.
He estimates that turkeys from his farm go into about 300,000 Christmas meals.
"I just came to that figure by working out how many kilos are in the freezer, and how much fresh we sell Christmas week and just divide that by 200 grams," Mr Watson said.
Feed costs skyrocket
Compared to last year, John has had to increase prices due to external pressures on the cost of feed.
"We don't grow any food of our own … so all our feed costs have really skyrocketed," he said.
"We've put our prices up marginally, but who knows whether it's enough or not."
Increasing input costs were not just causing higher meat prices, it has also sent other turkey farms out of business.
Claire Longbottom and her family had been running a business called Freshwater Turkeys but announced they would be closing at the end of the year due to increasing feed, electricity, fuel and processing costs.
Since opening in 2015, Ms Longbottom estimated the price of feed for their turkeys had doubled.
"If we were to double all our prices to compensate for the price of the feed, it would just be at a point where butchers will decline to buy them," she said.
"It's a pity consumers just won't purchase a product at the price that it should be."
Sad to leave it behind, Ms Longbottom said she had loved becoming a part of a Christmas tradition for her community.
"There is a great sadness in me at this time of the year when I have to talk to my customers that I have made relationships with," she said.
"It's really hard to feel like you're letting people down.
"But then I look at my bank account, and it's not paying enough dividends to do it for the love of it."
Shrinking number of independent turkey farms
Mr Watson said he was doing his best to help fill the market gap left by businesses like Freshwater Turkeys for independent and free-range products, but they did not have the capacity to expand any further.
"We've just tried to do everything," Mr Watson said.
"In looking back in hindsight, it was really stupid thing to try and do we should have just said no.
As to why more people did not consider farming turkeys in South Australia, Mr Watson said turkeys are notoriously hard to raise.
His business has been flying in 1,500 day-old turkeys from Sydney to Adelaide every three weeks for delivery by road to Bordertown, as he could not breed them on-site.
"They are very, very tricky to look after, I've been doing it 31 years and every now and again they still find a way they can outsmart me.
"I say to be a turkey farmer, you've got to be very resilient, and reasonably stupid, I probably have a touch of both.
"If it was easy, there would be a turkey farm down the end of every road."
