Butchering Turkeys?

[card5640]

Have some strawberry hullers on hand they make great pin feather removers, wonderful tweezers for this purpose.

 

[GBov]

If they are any way tame just tie the legs and restrain the wings, I use a bag I made but duct tape works well too, just go over kill with the wing restraints. Turkeys are STRONG birds, my first one shredded its bindings like tissue paper! I put a sock over the birds head to keep it calm (and so I dont have to watch its eyes when I kill it) and thats about it. Use whatever method to end its life you have chosen and yummmmmmmy!

Oh, I dry plucked. Its longer than scalding (or so I have been told) but I liked it.

I hung ours but got taint on some of the meat so I plan to just rest the carcase in the fridge for 3 days next time.

Good luck

 

[boxermom]

Thanks for the info. We'll be trying this out in Nov.

 

[pdpatch]

We found that using my engine cherry picker helps a lot. since it can be raised and lowered it make working on the turkey's easier.

For scalding we use the stand and burner unit from a turkey fryer and a trash can for the water. Usually around 145 to 150 for 1 minute to 1 minute 30 sec. It depend on how hard the feather are to plunk on the last bird. For chickens we scald at the same temp, but for 40 to 45 seconds.

we us a home made plucker that mounts on a battery powered drill. this saves a lot of time. It does not get the larger wing and tail feather those still have to be hand plucked.

For a lung scraper I use one of those cheap fish scalers

The processing table is an old kitchen sink top with double sinks in it. I hooked up and old water spicket and short hose on it. So we have running water.

For an ice chest we were given an old freezer, one of those short , square, apartment types. I removed the freezing hardware from it. We fill it about half full of water then use old milk jugs with frozen water to chill the birds after the initial processing.

As far as knifes I find most of the cutting is done with a fish fillet knife. As its light and narrow. I have a meat cleaver I us to remove the feet.

I also use a boning knife, It use on the necks once in a while.