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Tracy Greaney ushers a flock of turkeys towards their intended path to the slaughterhouse at Greaneyâs Turkey Farm in Mercer on Thursday, Nov. 4, 2021. The familyâs children, who once ran the farm with their parents, are now grown and living their own lives. To fill the need for labor, Tracy and Scott Greaney reached out to their Amish neighbors to help run the slaughterhouse.
Greaneyâs Turkey Farm is a family-run farm and slaughterhouse in Mercer, Maine. A humble family farm started by Tracy and Scott Greaney, it was just a hobby fueled by the sweat and a desire for a few extra dollars for the holidays for many years. The Greaneysâ three children, Emily, Ben and Adam helped their parents run the farm growing up and even took over most of the work when their father was battling cancer in 2013.
Now the familyâs children have grown and so has the farm. Fueled by an uptick in business driven by the coronavirus pandemic, the slaughterhouse is bustling. Finding staff has never been easy but the Greaneys are being helped by their new neighbors, two Amish families who recently relocated to Maine from Ohio.
The Millers and Yoders bring with them experience working in the meat processing plants of Ohio. The last jobs held by the family were in a meat processing facility.
âWe had some of the Amish families come down to help this year and it was great,â Greaney said. âTheir help brought in four of five extra people. Then, they bring their birds down and we process their birds. We all work together.â