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/ Poultry / How to Butcher a Turkey- Humanely

How to Butcher a Turkey- Humanely

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Have you purchased or priced out a locally raised free range non-gmo/soy free turkey for Thanksgiving? Well, they can be a bit on the expensive side. Understandably, it’s a very high quality product but it’s just an expense that we can’t justify.

Several years ago, we decided to start raising our own turkeys for the holidays and just for some good eating at other times of year. We have also raised some to sell which helps offset the cost of raising them for our own family.

Turkeys really are a joy to raise and are quite good foragers. They still have to be fed some feed, we choose non-gmo/soy free grower feed.

We have tried several options for tractors for the turkeys to move them on pasture as well as free ranging them. I enjoy letting them just free range but they like to go a little further than I want them to.

Butchering a turkey is much like the chicken butchering process, just on a much larger scale.

How to Butcher a Turkey

First we caught several and tied them up by their legs. They are pretty big and heavy but very docile. I’d suggest making some kind of kill cone or using a feed sack with a corner cut out for the head to go through. This will just reduce the amount of flopping as you butcher them.

If you’ve ever butchered any poultry, you know the nervous system causes a lot of flapping and what not during the process.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

After hanging them up we chose to cut the main artery on either side of the neck. This ensures the bird bleeds out well for cleaner meat and is humane. The nervous system causes them to flop and flap a bit so stay clear until they stop so you don’t get flogged. This is where the kill cones come in if you have them.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

Next we scalded them in a drum filled with water over a fire. Scalding causes the feathers to loosen up so that they can be plucked.We regulated the temperature by adding cooler water or stoking the fire depending on what our goal was. Turkeys should be scalded at 145-150 degrees.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

Now that they were scalded we hung them up again by the feet and began plucking. If you have access a chicken plucker that’s large enough for a turkey, they work quite well and are much faster than hand plucking.

Once we had most of the feathers out we moved them to a table for further plucking and cleaning as well as removing the innards, head, and feet. After they were clean we placed them in a chill tank of cold water.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

 

Once the turkeys were all plucked and clean we packaged them in poultry shrink bags. This is done by placing the bird into the bag and dipping it into 180 degree water. and then seal the bag with a twist tie. I don’t have any pictures of this part because I was quite involved in the process.

How to butcher a turkey at home. Butchering turkeys on your own is a great skill to learn on the homestead. It's another step towards being self sufficient when you can butcher your own meat.

The turkeys ranged from 12lbs to 21 lbs with most of them being about 17lbs. Now we have beautiful, healthy turkeys ready to freeze, eat, and sell.

It’s really not hard to learn how to butcher a turkey. You’ll be able to raise and butcher a high quality turkey for a fraction of the price of one you can buy. Butchering turkeys at home is a skill that I’m so glad we learned!

Here is our step by step video on how to butcher a turkey (we also use a plucker in the video):

For more on how to butcher a turkey-

A Farmish Kind of Life

The Spruce

The Self Sufficient HomeAcre

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Filed Under: Butchering, Homesteading, Poultry, Turkeys Tagged With: butchering, mat birds, pastured, poultry, turkes, turkey

About Jenna

Hey, y’all! I’m Jenna, wife to my amazing husband, Derek, mom to 8 beautiful farm kids, homesteader, homemaker, homeschooler, and lover of Jesus. I enjoy all things farmy, family, crafting, old fashioned, and homemade.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Amanda says

    November 20, 2015 at 10:31 am

    Beautiful birds — they look like they’ll make a fantastic meal! 🙂 May I ask what breed they are? My husband wants to raise turkeys next year and we’re researching what breed(s) to get.

    Reply
    • Jenna says

      November 20, 2015 at 11:09 am

      They are Broad Breasted Bronze turkeys. 🙂

  2. Annette says

    December 1, 2015 at 9:34 pm

    Hello,
    I just found your blog and YouTube channel. Are you still making videos for your YouTube channel? I just subscribed. 🙂

    Reply
    • Jenna says

      December 2, 2015 at 5:26 pm

      Hi! I’m so glad you found my blog! I am still making videos. I just haven’t edited or uploaded in a while. I plan to get back to that very soon. 🙂
      Jenna

  3. Sheila Horhota says

    March 29, 2019 at 6:36 am

    Do you age the processed turkeys before cooking or freezing? If so, how, and how long?

    Reply
    • Jenna says

      April 1, 2019 at 6:25 pm

      We refrigerate them for about 48 hours before freezing.

  4. Catherine says

    May 20, 2019 at 4:19 pm

    Free range turkey sound appetizing and it sounds like you kill quite humanely. That said, the idea of grabbing and hanging them up by their legs seems a bit disturbing.

    Reply
    • Jenna says

      June 10, 2019 at 11:31 am

      It’s actually more humane to do it this way. When the birds are upside down it puts them in an almost sedated state. If we were to just hold them down, it would be much more traumatic for the birds.

  5. Aimee says

    November 22, 2019 at 10:52 pm

    Wondering how old your turkeys are to get to the 12-21lb range. Thanks

    Reply

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Hey, y’all! I’m Jenna, wife to my amazing husband, Derek, mom to 8 beautiful farm kids, homesteader, homemaker, homeschooler, and lover of Jesus. I enjoy all things farmy, family, crafting, old fashioned, and homemade. Read More…

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