Frank Reese

Frank Reese is an American heritage-poultry breeder and fourth-generation Kansas farmer known for heritage turkeys and chickens, including the oldest continuously bred flock of heritage turkeys at Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch in Lindsborg, Kansas. His work depends on living flocks, inherited husbandry, and the long maintenance of breed continuity. He received the American Treasures Award from MADE: In America in 2012 for preservation work carried out through production rather than display.

Reese’s farming is centered on keeping rare bloodlines viable in actual farm conditions. He is a poultry farmer and heritage-poultry breeder devoted to preserving the rare bloodlines and old-world character of traditional birds. The birds are maintained as breeds with history, traits, and a reason to remain in production, not as anonymous production units. His practice places practical husbandry ahead of abstraction, with knowledge tested through seasons, breeding decisions, and flock health.

At Good Shepherd Poultry Ranch, continuity, resilience, and breed identity are the working measures of value. Preservation for Reese is inseparable from use. He has said his mission is to save heritage birds from going extinct by keeping non-factory farmed turkeys alive and available for people to eat. He has also said the only way he knew to do that was to put the birds back to work, return them to the market, and get people tasting them again.

In his view, heritage poultry cannot simply be remembered or admired. It has to function in the daily economy of food, where breeding, raising, marketing, and eating all support continued survival. Reese believes heritage breeds carry valuable genetics that the poultry industry may need again, and that those genetics would be lost without preservation. For him, each flock is more than a farm product. It is a living archive of breeding, adaptation, and agricultural possibility.

Traditional poultry farming also includes the methods used to raise the animals, and his farm philosophy includes protecting the farming methods that helped build this nation. That means raising animals humanely, sustainably, and lovingly, and resisting the narrowing of agriculture until older systems disappear. His work is also defined by standardbred poultry breeding and pasture-raised birds. The signature of his practice is direct: Standardbred flocks, heritage lines, and birds raised in a manner connected to the land rather than detached from it.

Succession remains a practical question in livestock preservation, and Reese has put that issue plainly: “What will happen to these birds when I die?” In his work, legacy is not admiration alone, but whether the birds keep breeding, keep feeding people, and keep mattering.