Butcher an injured turkey?

[Jwrath7]

I know this site is primarily for chickens, which we have, but this spring we decided to buy a couple of turkeys to raise for holiday meals. It has been a huge success so far, these two girls are way bigger than we anticipated! Unfortunately, last night I found one of them in bad shape. I’m not entirely sure what happened, but it has a small injury on its face and wasn’t getting up to walk around. I moved it to another pen (away from our Great Pyrenees dogs just in case). I decided to wait until morning to see if it survives, and it did. But it is still sitting in the same spot I placed it and it won’t walk around. I gave it some food and it is eating well. I’m assuming it just has a hurt leg. Should I butcher it? My wife is concerned that it might be sick or that the injury could effect its health and may not be a good idea to eat it now, but I don’t want it to die and be a waste. Thanks for the input!

 

[Eggcessive]

I am more familiar with chickens. Can you see any evidence of an injury, such as swelling, displacement of bones, or green bruising? Since you have raised them to butcher, I would probably go ahead and do that, but hopefully others who know turkeys will post. You also could use a sling chair to get her upright for awhile to give her some time to rest her leg. There is also a turkey forum that you can post on:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forums/turkeys.20/

 

[bobbi-j]

If there is an injury, I’d be inclined to butcher it before it gets infected.