ABOUT US

In 1998, the Schmidt family started their poultry business and expanded in 2001 by acquiring the Kackman’s Hatchery in Palmer.  In fourteen years, Kackman’s had established one of the largest commercial  chicken farms in the Southcentral area.  Now Triple D is the largest poultry supplier in the state of Alaska and the only fresh turkey supplier. Every year more and more people plan and purchase their Thanksgiving turkeys from Triple D because of it’s freshness and size.

“We were tired of buying stuff in the stores with a lot  of chemicals and preservatives, so it’ll have a long shelf life, and not knowing how it was raised” says owner Schmidt.

Now Triple D Farm & Hatchery is managed by the family of Anthony, his wife Phyllis and their five children.

The farm currently maintains about 300 laying hens  producing over 100 dozen FRESH eggs per week to local buyers.

In the spring season, they provide a wide variety of baby poultry distributing them through local feed stores, and selling them directly from their Mat-Su Valley location.  Chicks are also sold and shipped throughout Alaska and the Bush.

Last year, Triple D Farm and Hatchery sold between 45,000 and 50,000 head of poultry in Alaska, including 352 Thanksgiving turkeys. Most of the rest were live chicks and processed meat chickens, which go for about $2-$3 apiece.

“If it was just the chick business, we’d go broke,” Tony says. “ You know there is only a few cents per chick profit, but it’s all part of the farm business....The fresh eggs we sell are a little bit of income, doing the turkeys is a little bit of income.”

When Schmidt began raising meat poultry himself, he deliberately took care to give his turkeys and chickens a lot more room to roam. Since they’re in pens, he doesn’t consider them truly “ free range.” But the USDA would. The federal agency’s Website notes that producers only need to demonstrate that the poultry has been allowed “access to the outside” in order to be labeled “free range” or “free roaming.”

Triple D does advertise his poultry as free of antibiotics. Most major poultry factories Outside, such as those owned by ConAgra (the largest turkey producer in America) routinely distribute antibiotics in their feed as a means of preventing poultry disease, which be comes more of a threat the larger the animal population.

Big meat and poultry producers annually consume an estimated one-third to on-half of all antibiotics in the U.S. - and critics warn that the feed might pass on disease-resistant microbes to humans.

As far as the freshness argument goes, Anthony will claim an unequaled victory. The fresher and the moister the turkey, he says, the juicier and tastier it’ll be after it’s cooked.  “I’ve had so many customers say, ‘Man, we took that thing out of the oven and when we cut it the juice just came running out.’...That’s the difference.  IT’S A FRESH BIRD. ORDER YOUR FRESH BIRD TODAY!

Portions of this text were taken from an exclusive article written by George Bryson
of the Anchorage Daily News.