As area residents enjoy Thanksgiving Day leftovers this weekend and prep for their upcoming holiday feasts, a local teen and FFA member is proud to have contributed to some of the delicious components of these special meals through her award-winning market animals and her innovative berry business on her Lewistown area farm.
Alexandra Kinney, currently a junior at Indian Lake High School, received the Reserve Grand Champion Market Turkey Award at the 2024 Ohio State Fair for her nearly 55-pound turkey. Also at this year’s state fair, she was named the Outstanding Market Poultry Exhibitor for her age division for the fifth time at the state level.
“I am very honored to have raised a market animal that can be on people’s tables this Thanksgiving,” Alexandra said this week. “I enjoy being able to help give members throughout the community something fresh and local to help for the holiday season.”
She and her sisters, Allison Kinney, age 20, and Alivia Kinney, age 15, have been raising turkeys for about nine years, with Alexandra noting that the trio “started raising turkeys because we thought it would be a fun project to do with the market chickens we also raise.”
On a day-to-day basis, the sisters practice basic animal care with their flock of turkeys, including feed, water, and walking them twice a day, but there is even more to raising turkeys than what meets the eye, Alexandra noted. She loves “getting to see what goes into the birds to get quality meat on the carcass in return.
“The science behind the turkeys is so interesting in how the right amino acids and fats go in to receive the product you want,” she noted. “While you can feed the same feed year after year, there are also other factors, such as the genetics behind the birds and outside temperature, that will cause you to get slightly different results each year, making you tweak things just a little bit every year to cater to the birds.”
At the Ohio State Fair, the Outstanding Market Exhibitor award incorporates four components, which are: Skill-a-thon, a 4-H book, class placing and showmanship placing, the ILHS FFA member noted. During the market show, every judge has different preferences on what they think is important in a market turkey.
“This year during the show, the judge wanted a firm bird, finished, and that carried great width all the way back through the breast on the keel bone,” Alexandra said.
In addition to her top honors at the state fair, Alexandra also was busy with a variety of projects at this year’s Logan County Fair. She exhibited a market dairy steer, a dairy beef feeder, market chickens and breeding chickens.
Her steer placed third overall in the Jackpot Show; and she also received Best of Show with her Black Wyandot Hen, second place with her dairy beef feeder, second place with my meat pen, first place poultry showmanship senior division, second place dairy beef feeder showmanship senior division, and Alexandra won the Overall Showman of Showman award on the final day of the Logan County Fair.
Relating to her berry farm, Alexandra first began this project in 2023, and said while she originally had plans for expansion this year, the EF3 tornado that hit Indian Lake in March greatly affected those efforts. However, it did not totally curtail her crop. She currently raises a small patch of red raspberries, 710 black raspberries, and a small strawberry patch as well.
The berry business idea first took root after her previous FFA adviser told her about the National FFA SAE (Supervised Agricultural Experience) start-up grants. Alexandra looked into the program and started thinking about possible SAEs. The ILHS student knew if she wanted to be selected for the grant, she needed to pick a project that was unique and stood out.
“So I started looking around my community of what kind of business there was a need for, which landed me in the fruit industry,” she said. “Growing up, I had always loved raspberries and ate them by the container full. Black raspberries are a very small market, and are very rare to come across.”
This spring when the tornado struck Indian Lake, local residents rallied to assist Alexandra and her family with the clean up at their farm.
“Unfortunately, what was going to be my new addition of 600 black raspberries took a direct hit and set back my plans for ground prep. But with the help of many friends and community members, we got the site cleaned up and prepared for planting in May.”
In the coming year 2025’s harvest season, Alexandra hopes to sell her berries at local farmers’ markets, and through her social media pages. She plans to continue the berry business throughout high school and during her college years.
“I plan on attending college and possibly playing golf for that college. I want to get a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Business Management and a Certified Public Accounting degree,” the young entrepreneur said.
