When you gather around that juicy turkey, thank a farmer: Facts and figures about holiday meals

Just 14 weeks, according to research released this week by the Indiana Business Research Center in Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.

The big birds are big business in Indiana.

Farmers here have sold a whopping 14.5 million turkeys last year, 5.3 percent of all the turkeys in the United States.

Those sales netted Hoosier turkey farms $306.3 million, fifth most in the country. Minnesota, North Carolina, Missouri and Arkansas lead the pack.

"As you celebrate your Thanksgiving dinner, be sure to thank a farmer who has labored to produce the food that you enjoy sharing with friends and family," said Tanya Hall, an economic research analyst at the IBRC and also a family farmer.

Indiana's 14.5 million turkeys collectively weighed about 519.1 million pounds, according to the IBRC.

A male turkey, or tom, typically weighs 30 pounds at market, or about twice what a hen weighs.

The toms are normally used for cutlets, tenderloins, turkey sausage, franks or deli meats.

People who enjoy whole-bird turkey dinners are probably eating a hen.

On its way to dinner plates everywhere, an average hen will eat about 41 pounds of feed -- a mix of corn, soybeans, supplements and vitamins.

Side dishes

Not everything on a Thanksgiving plate used to have feathers, of course, and Indiana farmers are involved in producing more of the typical November smorgasbord.

The state produces about 1.7 percent of the nation's processed green beans, 1.3 percent of its fresh sweet corn and 1.3 percent of its cucumbers.

Hoosier farms also sell about 7.1 percent of all chicken eggs sold in the U.S., about 520 million eggs from September 2008 to September 2009.

The Thanksgiving potatoes, sweet potatoes or cranberries, though?

Those probably came from elsewhere.

Not just the food

Some Hoosiers spend all year giving thanks, and data shows that Indiana residents volunteered about $4.5 billion worth of their time last year.

More hours were spent fundraising than doing anything else, but the collection and distribution of food, a common activity on Thanksgiving Day, came in second, data from the IBRC shows.

Nearly 30 percent of Hoosier adults volunteered somewhere in the state during 2008, contributing 205.2 million of hours of time.

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