Butchering your Turkey

We will need to back track just a bit, to the night before. It was a wonderfully cool late evening, I was playing around on the computer while the rest of the house slept. Suddenly I heard my little pitbull mix puppy yipping in pain. I peeked out of the window to see to large adult dogs harassing her. I grabbed a single pump Daisy off the shelf. {yes a BB gun} Burst out the back door and attempted to put a steel pellet in the harassing dog's rear. They ran off into the darkness. I went back to playing on the computer. An hour passed and I heard the yipping again, and once again I grabbed the Daisy rifle and headed out the door. I shot at the dogs, and pulled the lever down and my hand slipped, my right hand held onto the stock, in the way of the mishandled lever. It slammed down on my hand. I screamed, the dogs ran. I whimpered into the house, and left the rifle. I had stupidly broken my middle finger. To answer your question abbagirl, I have been given my husband "the bird."

We separated the Turkey from the rest of the birds three days ago. We have set up a dog run with housing for this purpose. The goal to separating the animal, is to cut off food, but not water, and to make it easier to get a hold of. I consulted the various homesteading books I have around my house, trying to determine the best way of going about this. There were all kinds of different helpful suggestions, de-braining seems to be the popular method. I informed my husband of this, and he dared question my wisdom! He thought it best to go the way of the previous poultry.

Several days before, my husband went to the farm equipment store and bought a 20 gallon metal trash can. It turns out this is the only thing available to scald a large bird in. We need to build a fire underneath the trash can and a way to lower the turkey into it. I did not foresee myself lifting this bird by the feet and swirling it about in the trash can. I suggested some type of pully system, but that would require us building the fire under a tree. No good. The wind was down, under the burn limit of 15 mph, so we used the trash as our kindling, and set the burn pile ablaze.We used the railing from an old metal bunk bed to stabilize the can, and filled it up half way. It would take time to get this much water up to the appropriate heat. There is some small flames and hot coals in the picture above. It turns out that the water heated much quicker than we thought it would. So we had to keep it going while we prepared for the turkey.

The turkey gobbled patiently in his run. Our neighbor was out working his horses, when he spotted us. He wasn't real happy with what we were doing, he informed us he enjoyed listening to him gobble, oh but could he have a few feathers? We went into the run and gathered up the bird.Once we had the bird in hand, we needed to bind his feet. That was up to me. Umm ok. . . My husband proceeded to explain how I should do this in a husband type way, as if I should know how to do this, I ended up doing it my own way.With his feet bound, my husband carried him out to the block. The bird was a little heavy and my husband had to take a breather while deciding how best to do this. One would think you would have figured that out before carrying out a very powerful bird. But that's not how we do things here at the Homesteading Neophyte. My husband pushed the turkeys neck between the two nails that stuck out of the block, I had the honor of holding the bird's feet. Oh the joy. My husband used the machete, the same one he has used on the previous executions, and brought it down. The turkey fought hard and kick me away. The neck had not been cut away. He jerked about the yard, his death was too slow. I screamed at my husband to finish it, this was just too much, he wasn't suppose to suffer. Between my broken finger and my badly healed shoulder, I dragged the bird back to the block, where my husband tried again. I do not suggest beheading a turkey, there necks are just too tough. My husband got him again, hitting an artery, and the turkey died quicky, neck still intact. My feet binding technique is sorely lacking, at some point in the struggle, it had come undone. I was scolded and lectured about how one must bind. I neglected to point out the if he had killed the turkey on his first blow, that the binding would have held just fine. With the feet bound again, he was hung from our tree to bleed out. Again there is no one able to tell me how long it will take for a certain bird to bleed out. We just had to watch and wait.

Once the bird was up, the neighbor that had been out working his horses came over with his family. He received a few dry picked feathers, and awed about the size of our turkey. The sorrow of the impeding event had disappeared once it had been done. He congratulated us on his size.


We did foresee one minor problem. With the bird hanging upside down, his wings were on perfect display. With rigor mortis setting in, there was no way that we would be able to get him into the can. I held the wings close to the body while my husband went for something to bind them with. Oh the smell! Not the smell of death or blood, but the smell of turkey musk. It is gaggingly repulsive. And, of course, my husband took his time finding the rope.
I was not thrilled with the idea of sitting on the ground to de-feather this very large bird. I convinced my husband to help me bring one of his shop work tables out to the tree. We placed it near the hose and barn, tilting it so that the water could shed off easily. I covered it with a tarp that the Kansas wind had stolen from someone else and wrapped up in our trees. A gift from nature. It was in wonderful condition, only a speckle or two of purple paint on one side.Between checking the water and checking the bird, time moved too slowly. We also needed to find away to dunk the bird into the scalding water. My husband came up with the ingenious plan of threading a metal pole between the bound feet and using the both of us to carry it.

Once the bird had bleed out, we proceeded to carry it back out to the burn pile.
He didn't fit! This was the biggest container we could find and the bird was too big. My husband pushed and dunked until the turkey muscles relaxed from the heat, the water barely came up to it's ankles. Not good. We dunked for a count of thirty, but to be honest, it was longer because of the way we were finagling the bird into the water. We lifted him out and allowed the water to drain from him, before carrying him back out to the table. The musk smell had worsen. I know I complained of it before with the ducks, but the ducks were no where near this strong. I gagged more then once before getting use to it.

I began pulling the feathers out, starting with the tail and then moving onto the wings. The wings had been scalded longer than the tail, but it was still difficult to get them out. I ended up using a pair of pliers to pull them cleanly away.This was the only problem I had with the de-feathering. I am getting better at it. One thing did crop up, not so much of a problem, but an annoyance. We caught him at molt, and there were all these tiny emerging feathers that had to be dealt with, like a pimple. After a few hundred of them, the squeezing, rubbing and pulling technique became easier.

The next step was to clean him out. I removed his tail first. The tails of turkey have an oil gland just like water fowl. With those new field scissors, that I got for my birthday, worked wonderfully. And the tail was removed quickly, and cleanly.

Loud cursing now ensued as I cut about the turkey's rear. Oh dear god! Had I cut into the intestines? I hadn't, but the smell that followed the incision was so strong and rancid, I thought I was going to vomit. Nasty bird. The few days of no food had not cleaned out his system. He was still rather full.

The technique of pulling the intestines out as one, still doesn't work for me. Somewhere along the way, it ripped apart, luckily nothing had spilled out into the cavity of the bird. I have got to find a better way of doing that. It is very nasty. Once the intestines were free, I reached in the grab the next organ. It was the gizzard. The gizzard is very large and hard, full of rocks. I pulled it away from where it was attached, but the opening of the "pelvic" wasn't large enough, my hand hurt from trying to get it out. "It's like giving birth!" I called out to no one. It took a few minutes before pulling it free. My hand was bright red from the effort. The rest came out smoothly, though I was literally up to my elbow in turkey.

I ended up doing a hack job on the neck. It did not wish to be separated from the body. This took the longest to accomplish. Even my new field knife had a hard time with it. The turkey's neck is the same size as my wrist. We will make a lot of gravy with it.

Now it was just the matter of washing out the inside of the carcass
I ended up flooding the chicken's area as you can see. I think some french drains are in order for next year. My husband helped by taking some photos, many of which I will not be posting here, but a friend is wanting them because he plans on doing this himself next year.

I brought out the roasting pan to carry the bird into the house. He is bigger than the pan! Once inside we placed him in a garbage bag, and then in the fridge where he will brine with apple juice until Wednesday evening. He will take a long time to bake.

I need to go buy a scale today so I can get an official weigh in. Currently he is heavier than our two year old that weighs slightly over 35 lbs.

We didn't make as many stupid mistakes with the turkey as we had with the other birds. We did however learn a few lessons. I am sore this morning. I feel like I wrestled with a large turkey yesterday. My finger is swollen and burns again, and my shoulder is scolding me.