Hi, I am new to butchering . A friend raised two turkeys for us this year and we went and helped butcher and process 7 of them other day. Her H did the killing, slit the throat after tying them up in a feed bag so that they wouldn't beat their wings and bruise all the meat. They are really strong. He let them hang about 5-10 minutes or so. Then we had prepared a new metal garbage can with 160 degree water, wrapping a rug around the outside and putting the lid on between birds. We had water boiling to make sure we had the temp right. We would take out old wate and add new to up the temp between birds. We used a block and tackle that he uses for his deer in the garage to hang the bird on and dunk them in the garbage can hot water. Timed it for about 60-75 seconds, and then took him by wheelbarrow over to the table to take the feathers off. My girlfriend and I worked on one bird together to get the feathers off quickly and I was amazed at how quickly they did come off. The first bird took us about 40 minutes to do and the last about 20 minutes total with evisceration and everything as we got better as we went along. I did all the eviscerating and it went fine. Getting the neck off was actually the hardest part. We had two hens, about 12 pounds apiece and 5 toms, which were around 22 to 23 pounds apiece. She also had 3 roosters which had supposed to been hens.
She needed to get rid of those as they were beating up on her other hens. There was a cool breeze and there were absolutely no flies. About 6 weeks ago we had joined together with them and processed about 40 chickens. That was my first experience except for one duck I had done by myself last year, which was a mess. I think I can do any bird now.
We are having chicken tonight. We kept the turkey hen whole which will be for Thanksgiving and we cut the tom in half.
Mikkey
We are having chicken tonight. We kept the turkey hen whole which will be for Thanksgiving and we cut the tom in half.
Mikkey
