The sound of more than 3,500 turkeys clicking and gobbling can be heard off Mudmill Road in Wyoming.

But inside the office of TA Turkey Farm, the telephone and answering machine remain the loudest noises.

“My mom and I went downstairs for an hour, and when we came back, there were 30 messages on the answering machine,” said Elizabeth Palmer, whose parents and grandfather own the farm. “But it’s a good thing because it means that someone is ordering.”

The farm began raising a handful of turkeys in 1979 and giving them to neighbors and friends as Christmas presents. This year, the farm is preparing to sell approximately 3,000 turkeys around Thanksgiving and approximately 600 turkeys for Christmas dinners.

On the farm, the processing begins the Saturday before Thanksgiving, with the family using machines to slaughter and bag about 500 turkeys a day.

“About 500 turkeys a day is pretty easy to do,” said Clifton Palmer, one of the farm owners. “But when we start doing 600 a day, we will go into the night, sometimes until 10 o’clock.”

TA Turkey Farm uses some help from Amish and foreign workers, but family members will schedule time off from their day jobs to come help with processing the turkeys before Thanksgiving.

“It really brings our family together,” Elizabeth Palmer said. But she noted the family doesn’t usually cook their own turkey on Thanksgiving. “By that time, we’re usually all so tired, that we disperse and go to other people’s houses.”

Gordon Johnson, an agriculture agent for the University of Delaware’s Kent County extension, said there used to be other turkey farms in Townsend and southern Sussex County but he was not aware of any other large turkey farms currently operating in the state.

“But there might be some other smaller operations that I’m just not aware of,” Johnson said.

In June, July and August, the baby turkeys arrive at the TA Turkey Farm, and within 18 weeks, they have grown to the 14- to 30-pound birds that are eaten during the holidays.

Elizabeth Palmer said the farm gets a lot of repeat customers, including one man that names his turkey each year and makes a birth certificate for the family bird to hang on the wall.

“We were pretty nervous about this year, with the economy,” Palmer said. “But it looks as though we’re further ahead than we were at this time last year, which is a good sign.”

For more information on TA Turkey Farm, call 492-3030 or visit. www.tafarms.com.