An organization called Farm Sanctuary delivered the turkeys to Ms. Lane and Ms. Oeh. The group, dedicated to scooping up commercial farm animals raised in dirty, crowded conditions, began placing turkeys in friendly homes soon after its founding, in 1986. A growing number of other animal rights groups are now in the adoption business as well.

This holiday season, Farm Sanctuary, which tends to its animals on land in upstate New York and Northern California and has a $5.7 million budget, has 38 turkeys waiting to be adopted, said Tricia Barry, the sanctuary’s communications director.

From 25 to 50 turkeys a year are placed with adoptive families, said Lorri Bauston, who helped start Farm Sanctuary and now runs her own farm shelter called Animal Acres, a 45-minute drive from downtown Hollywood.

Ms. Bauston has five grown turkeys at the moment. Representative Dennis J. Kucinich, the Democratic presidential candidate and vegan, showed up last week and fed them stuffed squash, cranberries and pumpkin pie. Ms. Bauston’s birds are all too old for adoption, but when she gets a suitable one, it will go to the actress Daryl Hannah, who is making her property in Malibu poultry-ready.

Not just anyone can adopt a turkey. There are site visits and income reviews. Sheds must be built, and veterinarians secured. And then there is the deal-breaker: the family must be vegetarian.

Most of the 30 farm-animal shelters that have popped up in recent years get turkeys from law enforcement agencies, from animal welfare societies and from ranchers or processors with sick or injured birds. Some just show up under the cover of night, their origins unknown. Not all of them place their birds for adoption.

The turkeys adopted by the couple near Santa Cruz came from a Northwest plane that was carrying several thousand baby turkeys, called poults, from a breeder in Canada to a rancher in California this July. The plane was delayed for hours in Las Vegas. Many poults died, whether of the heat or suffocation, but some were saved by animal rights activists.