dispatching a *large* turkey [GRAPHIC PIC]

[snewman]

I'm a little worried now. I've got six BBW to do any day now. Three toms and three hens. They're huge. I don't know if they will fit in the oven whole. It's just not quite the same to present a cut up bird at the Thanksgiving table. They've been eating so, so much food though, I need to get them in the freezer. Luckily I talked my husband into getting the biggest one the store had. Of course, there are already 40 cornish X's and my whole garden in there. Hmmm.

 

[fitzy]

okay....someone already asked, but i didn't see an answer. what makes it so difficult to skin a turkey? chickens are pretty easy, what's the difference and is there a difference from one breed to the next?

 

[Buster52]

I'm just guessing it has something to do with the muscle needed to move those feathers when they strut. They have so much control over their feathers that they can splay them and even rotate the tail in different directions. Maybe it isn't the case for skinning all of them, or for all breeds, but it was certainly the case for me. Whole nother issue from skinning a chicken. I had to wrestle it every inch, while a chicken just slips off like a suit of clothes.

 

[ginbart]

Thanks Buster52, I just got on here this morning because my DH shot a turkey this morning and I needed to know the best way to dress it. It wasn't very hard finding out how. Thanks for all the information. Now I guess we will be having fresh turkey for thanksgiving. And the work begins.

 

[NewTurkeyMom]

Thanks for the great post on butchering a LARGE turkey. I did take my two boys to a family owned butcher shop a few weeks ago where they did the same process - it was horrifying but then very interesting to watch. But now for the real problem - I have two 45 pound turkeys in my freezer! I was not thinking the process through when I had them butchered - I was just focused on the End of the Road and relieved that I was able to be with them until the end. They will not fit in my oven! I would be interested to hear what others have done in this situation. I think I will need to ask the more local butcher to saw them in half for me so the meat is manageable - at 4-5 pounds per day for defrosting I am concerned the outside meat will begin to go bad before the inside is even defrosted.
Thanks for everyone for contributing to this great site. I never understood my husband getting excited about silly tractor forums until I became a chicken/turkey mom last spring and discovered BackYardChickens Forum.

 

[greyartist]

Very intersting. I like the trash can scalder! We raised turkeys for the first time this year. I was told they were heritage bronze but they are just as big as the one in your pic, maybe bigger. They went to 6 mths due to things always coming up and we kept putting it off. We just did 2 last Sunday. The plan was to do 3 but hubby said no more, he said he would pay me $20 to give the other one away!

It was an ordeal. Not knowing what to do we planned on slitting the throat and putting it in a large lidded rubbermaid trash can. Well we didn't have the lid close enough and it came back out! I ended up with the can over the bird on the ground and me laying over the top of the can as it bounced up and down as the bird died. Took a while too!

Then we tried scalding in a cooler but it didn't fit good, then tried skinning one, found it very difficult. The next we removed the feet and wings and was able to get it in the plucker but had to keep flipping it over because it was too big to tumble.

We ended up cutting them up in pieces and packing in a very large cooler on ice. I will be taking time off work tomorrow to pressure can the meat. No way either would have fit in my oven.

So we still have 1 tom needed to get gone. I have 1 hen and a tom I am keeping for pets. But I will not be getting more next spring, hubby says no way!
this was the smallest one.

turkey by greyart, on Flickr[/img]

 

[Scot1458]

Doing my first turkey this weekend (Midget White), do you dunk it in 140 degree water like chickens, or just dry pluck them? I've heard the skin is easier to rip.

 

[Lotsapaints]

My sister in law is going to help us she does a dry pluck....she kills her turkeys with a knitting needle she said never again will she scald turkeys she said the feathers just fall off easy when you pluck maybe pliers for the wing feathers.....Mine is for Christmas I'll be sure to let you know how it goes but mine will not weigh 30lbs it's a Midget White only 8 months old.

 

[terri9630]

We tried to dry pluck one of ours. Those feathers did not want to come out.

 

[SteveH]

Great pics Buster . I've got a video in my brain of that bird being brought from the kitchen to the dining room on a silver platter balanced on a wheel barrow for our Thanksgiving meal

Any bigger would require a forklift .