Tonight my Turkey dies :( ..R.I.P

[IrishBoy]

so ... mother has arranged for a nice ... (evil) man to slaughter Mr.Tom this evening. I shall make myslef scarce ....

i have made a deal we keep the hen for her eggs .. how many will she lay a year roughly ? she started to lay on Monday . 1st year

 

[msdoolittle]

My BB hen laid about 30 eggs or so, if not more, in a year's time. Maybe even more like 50. They are very good to eat.

I processed (read: slaughtered) my own turkeys last week. They were a year old and it was the first thing I have ever killed for meat. I did all the skinning, plucking and cleaning. Even though I really loved my turkeys, and I even cried a little over 'Tom', I had bought them for that reason and being BBs, they were just uncomfortable carrying all that weight. I thought I wouldn't be able to eat them, but I did with no problem.

I do plan on doing that again this year, and also plan on getting a heritage pair/trio for breeding purposes only.

I know how you feel, we all loved ours a lot!

P.s. on my blog, listed below, I have a post called "Ode to a Turkey", which is pretty much about my feelings about the whole killing/eating thing.

 

[IrishBoy]

The deed is done ...... shall post pics 2maro

 

[Struttn1]

If that tom was breeding her she can lay fertile eggs for a while even after he is gone. You can still try for poults if you have an incubator or broody chicken to put the eggs under.

 

[thaiturkey]

I'll have to face this myself one day and am reading up on 'processing' (such a nice, clinical word) with no relish at all. There is a market for live turkeys and my wife expects to sell enough that way to make a good return. I'm not convinced and am preparing for the worst by looking for UK and American sources of killing equipment. I would rather pay someone else to do the deed while we went somewhere else for a few hours but the only locals that I would trust to do it the way I want would probably be employees from one of the big battery chicken farms.

By the time that we have to dispatch (another nice neutral term) some I should have a workable answer.