As many of you know, My mom is now living with us during the week, and her normal day off is Tuesday so we had plans to clean and purge and get ready for the rest of the work week. Little did we know those plans quickly changed when she saw that my turkey had prolapsed.
For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, We bought a female hen turkey at the County Fair Auction. I thought I might be able to keep her around for breeding, but with the mutant crosses they do now to get these guys so huge, she was not going to be able to live and she was going to become thanksgiving dinner. When a hen prolapses, the egg she is trying to lay becomes attached to the lining of their insides, and basically they turn inside out. For cattle and people, you can sometimes just put it all back in, but with poultry they are pretty much done, and will only get infection and die.
So, judgment day came a little early for "Tonya" the Turkey. I told the kids not to name it, and not to get attached, but they all did anyway. So the first real butchering we did by ourselves began yesterday in a rush.
The last time we butchered (the proper word is processed, butchering is actually the act of cutting up the carcass later) we skinned the chickens. But who pictures a Thanksgiving Turkey without skin to golden over? So the only way to pluck a turkey is to scald it first. But you have to do this right after killing, so the water has to be just the right temperature (145-150 degrees) and you have to dunk the entire carcass. One problem with this scenario: Tonya was 30+ pounds. I didn't have a pot big enough, including the turkey fryer. So we are trying to find something to put boiling water in. Not a wash tub or a galvanized tub, if you heat it up you can let zinc out and possibly get zinc poisoning. Not a Laundry Hamper, the hot water will melt the plastic. So we finally found that our 55 Gallon Water Storage Barrell (Heavy Duty Plastic) was to become a turkey dunker. After we cut it in half.
Ok lets cut it in half....Anyone have a skill saw? Nope. Oh wait we have a battery operated Saws-all. Zippppp, Ziip... Zzzzz. The battery dies. Ok, what now? We have a branch saw by hand, does that work? No, not really. Finally we find a jig saw with a small little blade. Yea!!
Now, how are you going to heat the water to fill the 50 gallons? You can't light a fire under it, You have to boil the water on the stove top, and pour it in. 50 gallons? Yup. And yes, by the time you pour it in, it starts cooling. No problem, water boils at 212, we only need it at 145 right? Easier said than done. 2 hours later, we have the water in the tub at 145, the chopping block set up and Mark has agreed to kill it so I don't have to watch. Heavens sake, we named the thing, I can't kill something that ate out of my hands. Then Mark says, "Wait, I'll kill it, but someone has to hold it in the right spot." I had not mentally prepared myself and my stomach was churning at the thought. And my mom, who had all the answers on how to do this, refused to be a part of the actual killing of the bird. In the end, we all had to help, Mom positioned it and got out of the way, I had to stretch the neck out with a wire (I at least got to turn my head) and Mark had to do the deed. After that you have to hang the carcass up to bleed it, and it took two of us to pick her up. It was SO heavy! We then carried it over (one on each leg because one person couldn't hold it by themselves) and started dunking it and scalding it. The water was a little cool, but got the job done. We all got in and plucked and cleaned it off in record time (well, record time for us!). Then came the fun part. How the heck to clean out the insides without hitting something you're not supposed to! We were very careful and it took us another hour to figure it out (even with all the great picture tutorials we studied before trying this again). We all laughed how our grandparents (and Uncle John for sure) would be laughing at us not knowing how to clean a turkey out.
We just finished cleaning it out and making it look like dinner instead of a pet, when the kids showed up from school. It was quite a shock to them they all stopped mid-sentence when they saw this bird! I'll post pictures later, but this bird weighed in at 22 lbs. I guess that's average, but she was huge to us!
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