What a day! Holy balls did we got a lot done today. One of our more productive butcher days that I can really ever remember. It started before light with the scalding pot getting filled and the burner lit to get it heating. The shield helps to keep the heat focused on the old part of a hot water heater and in about an hour and a half it is up to ~160F which is scalding temp.
It was 7F when I went out to get it started.
I got my post done so had time to go soak for half an hour or so which was needed with the day that I then had.
The water was hot and I got to slicing necks. I rigged up a "kill cone" out of a planting pot with a hole cut in the bottom and some elastic string that holds it up and keeps it from falling off. I am rather pleased with the setup as it works really well and keeps their wings from breaking in full flaps.
I do 2 turkeys at a time on the younger ones since they are under 20 pounds and easier to handle.
Once they are bled out they get their feet dunked in the water to loosen the skin.
Then they are flipped over and dunked fully in the water. I put in soap to help cut past the oils on the feathers and help them come out easier in plucking.
Our poor plucker is nearly as old as me (over 40) and has a hard time with the heavy birds. I have to dod a lot of work to keep the bird from stopping the drum from spinning. I think I need to upgrade the motor to a better stronger motor. It is a fine line to walk though as I don't want to rip the skin of the birds either.
First two were young toms and ended up at ~13 pounds dressed each.
I kill them, scald, then pluck out by the coop then carry the birds to the house where we have our table setup in the kitchen and we do the gutting and rest of the butcher process.
We each gut a bird and once we get them down a good ways I head back out to get a couple more birds ready. The next ones I changed things up. We had 7 turkeys that are nearly a year old and HUGE. I needed to get them processed so after I grabbed a younger hen I started in on the older hens. The closer of the two is the older and barely fit in the cone, I mean barely to where I was wedging it on her.
A few of the young toms figured their shit out and jumped up on the brooder hut and a few made it out of the pen I had kept them in so I wasn't having to chase them down to catch them.
The next 2 were our old girls and the first did NOT fit in the cone. The second you can see barely fit in it. I like the elastic as it keeps the cone held up so I am not having to actively hold it, I just have to keep it from getting tangled.
Seriously, the girls were huge. I didn't get hanging weight but they were each WELL over 30 pounds live, my back is saying more as I type.
Truly astonishing the size of these things.
A 5 pound turkey breast. Just one.
I finished off with two more of our elder hens which takes us down to our old tom and an old hen plus 15 younger turkeys. I was quite happy to see that I had the 8tjh bird in the house by noon which is making good time.
Soon after I saw the freeze dryer was done with the last of the celery. 27 hours is not to shabby of a time but most of it was leaf which has a lot less water than the stems.
Still looks and tastes incredible. The pantry smelled like a vat of celery after the defrost cycle on the freeze dryer finished.
So a couple of our older hens have been laying and they had their egg line inside. We pulled both of the active ones out and got nearly a quart ziplock full.
@stryeyz tossed a couple in the boiling water for her butzls and they were totally edible, to her.
The backs of the birds got tossed into the brewing kettle for a bone broth stock type thing that boiled all afternoon and ended up at only a 1/3 of what started liquid wise.
I made another loaf of bread mid day since I used a lot of the remnants for my lunch.
I hauled the buckets of trimmings and bones out to the bone dump which is nearish the highway. I looked down and saw something red and as I got closer to it found a sleeping bag. It was only there less than 24 hours since I was out there dumping last weeks trimmings yesterday and it was not there. A nice bag for one of the boys after a run through the washer.
I have grain tomorrow morning so I had to get the trailer hooked up and ready to go.
The monster breasts needed to be cut up into steaks or steak like things and with the freeze dryer done with veggies for now I figured I might as well use the trays for freeing the turkey. Beautiful Tits!
Cutting breasts into steaks. One of your rare glimpses of my mugg.
I laid butcher paper on the freeze dryer trays then the breast cuts on them. They are out on the freezer to freeze overnight as it is going to be single digits again. 5 trays hold 4 breasts cut up.
My loaf of bread came out nicely and I need to have my mom show me how to do larger batches in the oven.
12 hours into butchering I got the remaining 4 breasts wrapped in butcher paper. You can see that each breast weighed over 4 pounds
Finally while @stryeyz was finishing scrubbing the last wings I deboned the drums and thighs. We got everything bagged up and set outside to freeze. At some point we are going to thaw the various bags and run them through the meat grinder for ground turkey which will be vastly easier to store.
I should not have written this last night as I have my story to write but whatever, it is what it is. I have grain in the morning so It will be much easier to just hit publish than type all this out...
I am going on my grain run now before dawn, it's J's 9th birthday and we will be making a cake, 3 turkeys are getting sold, turkey steaks need to get packaged up from the freezer, and I hopefully will get my ass past 30K words on my story today.
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