Let’s talk turkey: ACES partners with local farm for Thanksgiving dinners in Aspen

Aspen Center for Environmental Studies’ Rock Bottom Ranch is partnering with the Roaring Fork Valley’s Marigold Livestock Company to raise turkeys and process them for residents to use for Thanksgiving dinner. 

Turkeys are part of Rock Bottom Ranch’s livestock program, in addition to sheep, 700 laying hens over the course of the season, rabbits, cattle from May through October, and chickens. Cameron MacKenzie, Rock Bottom Ranch’s livestock manager who started as an ACES naturalist in 2022, said the ranch raises around 1,000 poultry birds, both turkeys and chickens, over the course of the season, in line with a state poultry exemption that allows operations of 1,000 birds or less to proceed without state certification.

“We’re taking really good care of these birds,” MacKenzie said. “There’s a lot of love and care.”

While Rock Bottom Ranch has historically raised their own turkeys, this year marks a first for its partnership with Marigold Livestock Company.

“This is a great opportunity for us to be able to make it happen (for Thanksgiving) and also support another local farm,” MacKenzie said. “It definitely was really awesome to have this partnership with Alyssa.”

Rock Bottom Ranch Director John Middleton agreed, noting that Alyssa Barsanti, founder of Marigold Livestock Company and the farmer training facilitator at ACES’ Rock Bottom Ranch, helps provide some of the highest quality meat to help feed the community.

“We experimented with a unique partnership to have Alyssa and her Marigold Livestock Company raise our turkeys just a couple of miles down the road from Rock Bottom Ranch this year,” Middleton said. “We love this partnership because Alyssa still works for ACES part-time as our Farmer Training Program Coordinator and is still intimately involved with our apprentice training program, providing coaching and mentoring daily at Rock Bottom Ranch. With such a close relationship and constant communication, it still feels like we reared our turkeys in-house.”

Barsanti called the partnership with ACES to raise live birds for their program “exciting.” According to her, Marigold Livestock Company has faced hurdles as a two-person crew with the amount of turkeys they can raise without hiring four to six additional individuals per processing day.

“ACES has a larger crew to pull from for processing, so buying live birds to process and package on their end is more manageable,” she said. “It felt like a win for MLC to increase turkey production but not have to add on additional processing and packaging days.

MacKenzie noted that both Rock Bottom Ranch and Marigold Livestock Company are in alignment with the way pasture-raised poultry is managed, using poultry — and other animals — to help steward the land and promote healthy soil and grasses.

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“What’s really special about the way that we manage our pasture-raised poultry is the intensity of it,” she said. “We shift and rotate the area they’re in every season … It’s been really cool because since I’ve been here, we moved pasture-raised poultry into a specific area that had patchiness and not a lot of diversity in the plants that were there, and after even just one season of rotating our turkeys and chickens, you really saw a difference.”

She noted that the grass is growing so much more in that area than it used to, and it’s a deeper, richer color.

“A big part of raising these animals outside of just feeding community members is making sure the land we’re operating on is being stewarded by both us and the animals,” she said. “It’s just really special to have these animals live a life that is not just for the sake of our nourishment, but also for the sake of nourishing the land.”

Turkeys, and chickens, sold by Rock Bottom Ranch are also part of the ranch’s Farmer Training Program, where both locals and those across the country can come and participate in a unique apprenticeship. Rock Bottom Ranch hosts two livestock apprentices and two vegetable apprentices from March/April through the end of October, MacKenzie said, where they get to participate in hands-on experience, classroom time, farmers markets, stickshift training, farm tours, and more.

“It’s just a beautiful thing to be able to see young farmers make community connections,” she said of the program’s ability to immerse and expose apprentices in Rock Bottom Ranch’s operations. “It’s really cool to see that jumping off point for folks.”

Middleton added, “At Rock Bottom Ranch, we produce multiple species of livestock and countless varieties of fresh vegetables, but I always say the most important thing we produce is future farmers through our Farmer Training Program.”

As of Wednesday, livestock and vegetable apprenticeship applications are now live. Those interested can apply at aspennature.org/careers.

While Rock Bottom Ranch only had two turkeys left for purchase as of Thursday, Middleton highlighted that Rock Bottom Ranch Farm Store still has many whole chickens and chicken cuts available.