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i have a turkey, which is supposed to be for christmas

however

1 how do you judge how much the turkey weighs less its feathers/head/feet and other bits i dont want to eat?

2 if its too small will it be ok for next christmas, or will it be too old and tough?

3 if its big enough whats the best/easiest way to kill it.. i dont fancy bleeding it to death like the locals do

4 what else do i then do to rid it of its feathers? can i kill it on christmas eve or is it best to be killed days before and if so how many days before?

much thanks..

I've not got birds in yet - but I will as soon as is possible!

However... the lady next door has about 40 turkeys that live in the field between us & she's just been for a cuppa & to bring me some eggs
She keeps turkeys each year & her hubby killed them until he died 3 years ago - now with 11 boys, 8 still at home, they send them to 'the place' to be sorted, 'cos the boys won't do it!

Anyway, she says the best way to kill a turkey is put its head down, put a broomstick or block of wood across the neck & stand on it with a foot either side.
Grasp the turkey legs firmly & pull up to break the neck. Do this as positively as you can - make it a clean swift break.

Then it's a matter of plucking the feathers & hang it for a few days. Her turkeys all get done on the 20th/21st December & are hung in the shed where they are kept at night.....they are given out to everyone on xmas eve.
Sally also says that if a turkey weighs around 20 to 25 pounds while alive, then it'll be fine.

Hope that helped, Julie.

We rear turkeys for eating as well. One way you can weigh the turley live is place it gently in a pillowcase or a feed sack and hang from fish scales, then subtract 40% of the weight to allow for all the offal. Then decide if it's too small.

We don't usually kill ours until they are well over a year old, so waiting until next Christmas should be fine, but at that age I would certainly age it (I don't bother hanging outdoors, as it's too hot here that time of year) by at least storing it in the fridge for 3-4 days before cooking and slooooow roasting it.

As for killing, the abovementioned method should be fine if you can master it; I have to shoot them in the head (air rifle) now because of a back and shoulder injury which has robbed me of the strength in the right places.

I dry pluck our turkeys, they're too big to go in the chook-scalding pot. If you hang them overnight once bled (you MUST bleed out the carcass if you are going to age the meat at all, or you will have a smelly mess on your hands in no time), they are much easier to dry pluck then when freshly killed. But when I bleed ours, they are already dead. You just have to cut the jugulars as soon as death occurs. They bleed out very quickly. (Also, if they are killed by throat cutting, if the person doing it knows that they are about, death is instantaneous because all brain impulses are stopped.)

Cheers and good eating!
Andrea
NZ

thank you both

and thank goodness the turkey cant read!

so she may live for another year, or we ration the turkey slices to half a slice each person, but when the time comes i now at least know how to kill her and how to make her look like she should before she is cooked

have a very merry Christmas


www.casadossonhos.co.uk

We've got a couple of Turkeys on the go at the moment.

Last weighing they were 13 and 10 kilos each, so pretty hefty birds (around 5 months old I think).

I'm expecting to do the throat/jugular cut, if possible going all the way through the spinal cord which should make it fairly instantaneous.

I know this is an old thread, but it has some of the info I wanted to know, but havbe a another question. I am doing a few turkeys this year for x-mas, but wanted to know, roughly how long is reasonable between killing and cooking before the meat is spoiled or they need to be frozen.
The reason I ask is that , I will be rearing about 20 turkeys for slaughter and will do the killing plucking etc by myself so it will take me a while, but obviously my customers will want them as close to Christmas as possible. I suppose my question is really this: how many days do you think I can start Slaughtering before Christmas in order that the first one is still edible on Christmas day. Sorry if this sounds stupid, but have never slaughtered on this scale before. Any help much appreciated.

Gert