turkey butchering questions

[Hummingbird Hollow]

Hi can I add a question? Is processing turkeys basically the same as chickens? All the organs in the same place? I've done chickens but this will be my first year butchering turkeys.
Our first year butchering chickens we slit their necks and used a killing cone. The second year an ax. I think hubby preferred the quickness of the ax.

One thing I noticed in the turkeys we just butchered this afternoon was that the crop was a real pain in the neck....ooooh no pun intended there...to remove. The connective tissue that holds the crop to the chest wall was really tough and I damaged 2 out of the 4 crops I worked on trying to remove them. I almost never have this problem with the chickens I've butchered.

 

[Maeser]

We butchered turkeys this year for the first time. Yes, they are the same on the inside as a chicken. I liked doing the turkeys better than chickens. They bled out faster & it was easier to gut them. We slit their throats. I prefer that as they bleed out better. We did use the cones, which prevented flapping and bruising. No, I don't think the large canner would work well. My FIL gave us a HUGE restaurant size pot that drawfs my biggest canner. It would work well. We happened to have a very large, heavy barrel that came with the property. We used it to scald the turkeys. We used a 60,000 BTU Camp Chef propane burner that we set up outside. We stacked cement blocks in a circle until they were just above the edge of the burner and let the blocks carry the weight. It worked perfectly. And, when we were through, we drained the cooled down water out of the barrel with a small sump pump. Our turkeys dressed out at 8, 10, & 11 pounds for the hens, and 32# for the tom. The turkeys were mixed Spanish Black & White Holland. We kept 2 of those and two Burboun Reds back for breeding next spring. BTW, the 8# hen was a runt when we bought her and stayed a runt. But, she was a perfect size for the two of us for dinner with leftovers. Our hens were a little smaller because I am very allergic to soy, so it took longer to grow them with the soy-free feed we mixed ourselves. We did figure out other high protein sources of food to add to their diet such as meat & eggs when available.