The Old Folks Home

[dsqard]

tcmstalcup I am in complete agreement with SCG. What I do to dispatch them is hang them upside down and then cut the jugular. They will flap and swing about but at least you are not getting beaten up. You will need a bigger scalding pot for them (pretty obvious) but other than that it is just like processing a chicken. I find turkeys easier actually because it is easier to get my hands inside the bird to get the guts out. The last one I processed (last Friday) was interesting. It was a mature hen and she had developing eggs in her and an unlaid complete egg. I've never processed a mature hen before. It was very interesting. She was also delicious after brining for a day and then smoking her. Yummy Easter dinner.

ChickenCanoe we got two contractors out yesterday and SURPRISE both of them said that the original roof was installed wrong. It is just so frustrating that my small plastic chicken coop roof (installed by me who knows next to nothing about building things) stayed in place and this metal roof just peeled off. Oh well, hopefully we will be able to get the contractor moving on getting the roof installed in the next few days. At least the insurance company has been fairly easy to deal with so far.
LFchixranch, I agree with SCG, your buddy would have tasted great even if he was small. I processed a troublesome roo about a year ago and we had "Randy" enchiladas for dinner. SCG just happened to be visiting when we ate him. She can attest that the enchiladas were even better with "Randy" in them. LOL

 

[Dragonfly216]

Any advice for a first time Turkey processor? I've processed my dual purpose chickens but just never a turkey. A neighbor gave me a white Tom to eat because he can't kill an animal. He is under my carport currently in a big dog crate. He will meet his demise in the morning. I can't put it off since he has little clearish yellowy bugs crawling on him and I don't want him exposed to my birds.

Same anatomy as a chicken, with a couple notable differences: 1. If you use the hatchet method to off the bird, be warned, they are VERY powerful birds. The one I processed whipped me around good (sans head) and was "flying" in the air (with me holding on to the legs) for a good 20 seconds (which seemed to last 2 hours). You can imagine the scene, not pretty and it hurt. 2. Had a very hard time getting the bird in the scalder and then into the bucket to cool it off since it was so big. It got stuck in a 5 gallon bucket and was quite awkward to get it back out. Other than that, very easy. In other turkey news, my thanksgiving dinner hatched today under the best broody hen in the world. Miss Banty is a good sport and has hatched many ducklings for me (which is cute to see her sit on them even when they're bigger than her at a week's age) but this is her first attempt at turklets. She's still got 2 turkey eggs under her, but I was kinda disorganized when I stuck them under her over the course of a few days, so if they don't hatch in the next 24 hours, I'll move them to another broody hen (currently all of my cornish hens are broody, who knew games were such broodies?) to hatch. And for giggles:

Oh man, the duck under the broody is way too hilarious! May I have your permission to share that photo on my Facebook? That's too cute!

 

[Dragonfly216]

Any advice for a first time Turkey processor? I've processed my dual purpose chickens but just never a turkey. A neighbor gave me a white Tom to eat because he can't kill an animal. He is under my carport currently in a big dog crate. He will meet his demise in the morning. I can't put it off since he has little clearish yellowy bugs crawling on him and I don't want him exposed to my birds.

I don't think putting your neighbor in a big dog crate in your garage is legal.

Lol! That's awesome.

 

[drumstick diva]

Chicken Canoe, Boy, could we use you around here.!! You must be a' jack of all trades.' What a treasure !!

 

[Pozees]

Diva I was thinking the same thing! That roof project sounds massive!

 

[Highcotton]

<*giggling*>
I so try not to notice such things on BYC because not everybody is as much of a grammar-Nazi as am I, but the quoted example
got through my filter as well.

Hagar, please don't take offense - your post made me smile, plus it's a fun idea for one of MY neighbors (except for the crawly bugs bit).

My remark was made in fun. So I am not offended. I also hope the author wasn't offended either.

 

[Highcotton]

Ok my neighbor probably NEEDS to be the one in the crate but alas, it's the real turkey

Thanks for being a good sport.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Jack of all trades and master of none is what my mom used to call people like me. Meaning it takes me a lot longer to do things than a tradesman in that field (however I was an industrial electrician for about 20 years). But I can do just about anything on a building or machine - industrial, commercial and residential.
By the time one gets to be an old folk, IMO there's not much you can't do. About all I won't do is HVAC. I'm not fond of working on appliances either (stoves/ovens are ok)
I think that when you grow up on a farm or take on a historic home, you just automatically acquire skills repairing machinery, earth moving, rehabbing/restoring buildings etc.. Probably like Canuckbok and hubby.
I never hired a contractor to work on this house because I didn't want to spend a lot of money and then be disappointed in the outcome.
What can I do besides fruit and vegetable gardening, cattle, hogs, horses, chickens, game birds and large parrots?
Rough and finish carpentry; car repair (my son and I completely rebuilt the under carriage, suspension and drive train of his '85 BMW 5-series. Over 40 years ago I did a ground up restoration of a basket case '60 Austin Healy Bugeye Sprite); drove a wrecker in my first couple jobs (75% of my adult jobs were repairing, towing and building automobiles or repairing the equipment that built cars); My first 4 years at Ford, I installed roughly 3000 vinyl roofs each week on Mercury Grand Marquis (one every minute, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week). I can pull, glue and trim out a vinyl roof on a refit in about 10 minutes. I've replaced rag tops on everything from VWs to MGs, Saabs and even a 1950 Dodge Wayfarer Sportabout.
I wire and stick welding (I once temporarily tack welded my muffler back onto my MG on the Great River Road in Minnesota when it came apart using my car battery); operate forklifts, bulldozers and backhoes; pour, resurface and refinish concrete, lay brick and stone (I had to teach myself to mix mortar based on the age of the brick - modern mortar will ruin old brick walls); plumb whole houses; industrial pipefitting; program and repair robots; integrate disparate automation systems; do fiberglass work, et. al. infinitum. I couldn't afford a new bucket for my bucket truck so I rebuilt mine that was a true health hazard. When in Costa Rica, there were two properties that housed large parrots by the hundreds. They each had a water tower that they would pump into from the wells and then gravity feed the cages. One tank had a serious leak and it was costing them $500 a month in electric to keep the tank full. Maybe they would have been better off buying a new tank but their funding sources didn't subscribe to it. They had a few volunteers try several patches in the past to no avail. I drained the tank, ground away all the failed fiberglass and rebuilt the tank and it held. I was at the hardware store every day and learned the Spanish words for almost everything there.
It bothered me that women got ripped off at car repair shops so about the time of the Sprite rebuild I held auto maintenance classes for women at my house where they brought their cars and I taught them to do their own oil changes, tune ups, belt and hose changes and simple bolt on stuff like alternators. The idea was, the more familiar they were with how cars operated and what parts were called, the less likely they were to be taken advantage of.

What's cool about having skills is that you can see the world on a shoestring by volunteering. Most volunteers are college kids without many skills. They usually have to pay room and board as well as a fee for the privilege. There's a program called workaway where I listed my skills and had several offers to go to Europe and Africa with free room and board in exchange for my help. Usually when you're over 60 some of them don't want you but it depends on what you know.
If I didn't have chickens now, I'd be travelling the world doing just that.

 

[chickisoup]

I'M A NEW CHICKI MOMMA!!!


Better pics to follow but they just arrived and I didn't want to harass them too much yet.

 

[Highcotton]

Jack of all trades and master of none. Meaning it takes me a lot longer to do things than a tradesman in that field (however I was an industrial electrician for about 20 years). But I can do just about anything on a building or machine - industrial, commercial and residential.
By the time one gets to be an old folk, IMO there's not much you can't do. About all I won't do is HVAC. I'm not fond of working on appliances either (stoves/ovens are ok)
I think that when you grow up on a farm or take on a historic home, you just automatically acquire skills repairing machinery, earth moving, rehabbing/restoring buildings etc. I never hired a contractor to work on this house because I didn't want to spend a lot of money and then be disappointed in the outcome.
What can I do besides fruit and vegetable gardening, cattle, hogs, horses, chickens, game birds and large parrots?
Rough and finish carpentry; car repair (my son and I completely rebuilt the under carriage, suspension and drive train of his '85 BMW 5-series. Over 40 years ago I did a ground up restoration of a basket case '60 Austin Healy Bugeye Sprite); drove a wrecker in my first couple jobs (75% of my adult jobs were repairing, towing and building automobiles or repairing the equipment that built cars); My first 4 years at Ford, I installed roughly 3000 vinyl roofs each week on Mercury Grand Marquis (one every minute, 10 hours a day, 6 days a week). I can pull, glue and trim out a vinyl roof on a refit in about 10 minutes. I've replaced rag tops on everything from VWs to MGs, Saabs and even a 1950 Dodge Wayfarer Sportabout.
I wire and stick welding (I once temporarily tack welded my muffler back onto my MG on the Great River Road in Minnesota when it came apart using my car battery); operate forklifts, bulldozers and backhoes; pour, resurface and refinish concrete, lay brick and stone (I had to teach myself to mix mortar based on the age of the brick - modern mortar will ruin old brick walls); plumb whole houses; industrial pipefitting; program and repair robots; integrate disparate automation systems; do fiberglass work, et. al. infinitum. I couldn't afford a new bucket for my bucket truck so I rebuilt mine that was a true health hazard. When in Costa Rica, there were two properties that housed large parrots by the hundreds. They each had a water tower that they would pump into from the wells and then gravity feed the cages. One tank had a serious leak and it was costing them $500 a month in electric to keep the tank full. Maybe they would have been better off buying a new tank but their funding sources didn't subscribe to it. They had a few volunteers try several patches in the past to no avail. I drained the tank, ground away all the failed fiberglass and rebuilt the tank and it held. I was at the hardware store every day and learned the Spanish words for almost everything there.
It bothered me that women got ripped off at car repair shops so about the time of the Sprite rebuild I held auto maintenance classes for women at my house where they brought their cars and I taught them to do their own oil changes, tune ups, belt and hose changes and simple bolt on stuff like alternators. The idea was, the more familiar they were with how cars operated and what parts were called, the less likely they were to be taken advantage of.

What's cool about having skills is that you can see the world on a shoestring by volunteering. Most volunteers are college kids without many skills. They usually have to pay room and board as well as a fee for the privilege. There's a program called workaway where I listed my skills and had several offers to go to Europe and Africa with free room and board in exchange for my help. Usually when you're over 60 some of them don't want you but it depends on what you know.
If I didn't have chickens now, I'd be travelling the world doing just that.

I insisted that my daughter knew how to check the air in her tires, check the battery and check the oil level and the transmission fluid level before she got her drivers license.