How Turkey is Done

Grow Your Own Turkey; Eat Your Own Turkey

Greetings, dear reader, from out in Bippus, where we grow our own turkey.  We grow them because we love them.  And we love them, not because they make great house pets, or fine companions, but because we know what they have eaten, and because they are delicious.  If you are from the cellophane wrapped and styrofoam  packaged meat eating crowd, well this may be your last chance to click onto another website or something, because I am going to show you some pictures of turkey being converted from *on the hoof* to *table ready*.

Now please understand, dear reader, that no one that I know looks forward to killing and cleaning their own livestock.  In fact, most that I know drive a considerable distance to have others process their live birds for them.  Old Uncle Milton is just too cheap, and too short on time, to go driving around 35 miles to have someone else butcher a turkey for him.  So, as they say in those Budweiser commercials, here we go.

Go out and Catch You a Turkey

Of course this is a heck of a lot easier if you raise your turkeys in a Pavo Tractor.

Catching a turkey is easy inside a pavo tractor

Turkeys can be caught by grabbing them by the tail feathers.  Their leg is a much better handhold.   By carrying them with their head down, they tend to become somewhat sedate after a moment or two.  Of course, all the initial squawking attracts the attention of the dogs.

The dog is very interested in the squawking turkey

Notice in the photo above the turkey is being carried by the foot.  She is on her way to the chopping block.

Turkey on the Chopping Block

There are two nails on the top of the chopping block that hold the turkey’s head in place.  The new retriever pup is very interested in this event.  The hatchet man pulls back slightly on the turkey’s legs…

And…

The blade of the hand axe falls

The little pup had just been instructed to “GIT!” and you can see in the photo above, he pretty well understood and got out of there.

The Turkey and its Head are Separated

And in the photo above, the chopper also got out of there.  What is not readily apparent in the photo above is that the decapitated turkey is bleeding profusely, as in blood spraying out as it proceeds through its death dance.  The body can gyrate wildly for four or five minutes, while the wings flap, and the legs kick.   It is not a place that you want to be.  The blood continues to spray out during this time, and it can be a bit messy.   The worst of this is now over.  (To be continued).

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