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Some agricultural professions have specific names assigned to them. For example, a person who raises sheep is a shepherd and a person who raises cattle is a rancher. What would a person who raises turkey (or perhaps poultry in general) be called?

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9  
A turkey farmer. – Peter Shor Oct 14 '12 at 1:24
@PeterShor Are you sure? Don’t farmers raise vegetables and dairy products, and ranchers raise animal flesh for meat? For example, it is an ostrich ranch, etc. These people seem to think so, and so do these. There seems to be some historical trending going on here. Maybe it only applies to the American West. – tchrist Oct 14 '12 at 1:48
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Peter Shor is right: turkey farmer, chicken farmer, pig farmer, etc. – Robusto Oct 14 '12 at 2:39
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepherd or sheepherder, is a person who tends, feeds, or guards flocks of sheep. Not necessarily the owner/breeder – mplungjan Oct 14 '12 at 6:50
In the UK, it's also fairly common to hear "poultry farmer". – scottishwildcat Oct 14 '12 at 12:00

3 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

The word you are looking for is poulterer (there is an obsolete version, poulter), or perhaps poulteress. All are found in the OED in this sense.

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"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one, at the corner?" Scrooge inquired. "I should hope I did," replied the lad. "An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they"ve sold the prize Turkey that was hanging up there -- Not the little prize Turkey: the big one?" – tchrist Oct 14 '12 at 2:32
Looking at the hits in Google Ngrams‌​, it seems that the usage over the last century or so is that a poulterer is somebody who sells poultry (like a butcher is somebody who sells meat), and a poultryman is somebody who raises poultry (like a rancher is somebody who raises cattle). Earlier, there must have been some other term for poultryman. Maybe poulterer did double duty. – Peter Shor Oct 14 '12 at 4:00
@PeterShor The OED has a quote about a poulter as someone who raised poultry, not just who sold it, but it is from a long time ago. – tchrist Oct 14 '12 at 6:19
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I have a friend who raises turkeys, so I asked him this question today. First word out of his mouth was poulterer; when I asked about turkey farmer, he said, "Yeah, you could call it that, too." – J.R. Oct 14 '12 at 21:55
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@J.R. Well if that’s not straight from the turkey’s mouth, I dunno what is! :) Thanks for the field work. – tchrist Oct 14 '12 at 22:13
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up vote 5 down vote

In Australia, the general term, depending on the level of involvement, would be Turkey breeder or Turkey producer.

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up vote 2 down vote

Poult (The American Livestock Breeds Conservancy)
"is a young domestic (not wild) turkey."
"Poultry are domesticated birds that are kept for meat or eggs including birds of the order Galliformes: chicken, turkey, natatorial (swimming) birds: duck and goose."

Poultry (Wikipedia)

If you want to be technically specific, it would be poulter.
Informally, you can say turkey farmer.

See also:
poultry (dictionary.reference.com)
mid-14c., from O.Fr. pouletrie "domestic fowl" (late 13c.), from poulet "young fowl" (see pullet). Poulterer (1630s) is a redundancy, but has largely ousted original poulter (c.1400), from O.Fr. pouletier "poulterer," with agent suffix -er. Poetic poulter's measure (1570s) is of fanciful origin.

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