Turkeys

Sunday my mom decided she was ready to kill the 10 turkeys she had been raising. Normally you wait a little longer but these suckers were huge! They were eating 50 lbs of feed every other day. We set up a station at my parents shop.

Chris and my dad went and grabbed two of the turkeys from the pen

 Suckers were huge. Chris had a hen and dad had a tom. We had to put them in buckets with the bottoms cut out this time instead of cones like with the chickens. 

Todd was in charge of the killing. Hes the only one whose done it before like this.

 You cut their throats on the inside and they very quickly bleed out into the buckets. Way less messier than when we were kids and they would just cut the heads off and let them run.

 We also had to buy big garbage cans to boil the water in for dipping them. The other tubs werent big enough. We had the temp at 170 to scald and then into the water for a few seconds.

 From there to the mother plucker. It took a while to be able to figure out the best way to hold them. The thing kept jamming because the birds were so big. This first turkey thats showing the process was 30 lbs.

 You have to hold it up the whole time its spinning so it doesnt damage the skin as bad and you have to keep water on it.

 There are a few feathers left so it goes to the next table to have whats left over plucked. 

 Miss Koree hung out on a chair in the shop to watch

Then it goes to the next table where us girls make sure all the pin feathers are out.

Then we gut it...

and have to take its neck and gullet out

It gets washed out good

and its ready to be weighed

Jana bags it, puts in a timer and then tags it with the weight

Then the bags dropped into hot water where it makes a seal around the bird

and its ready for the freezer

We got creative in our washing ways

 Koree was as happy as could be with a drink and Cheetos

 mom doing cpr on the turkeys back...

 Their necks were so huge and thick we couldnt cut them. We had to get shears.

 Let me play you the song of my people...

We finished in 4 hours! Not everyone's way to spend a Sunday but we were all together and having fun! Plus now there are 10 home grown, organic turkeys in our freezers.

The average hen was about 18-20 lbs and the toms around 30 lbs