Warning: If you are not seriously interested in learning about turkey butchering, seeing the process documented in photos, then I suggest you do not read or look any further.
Hot water ready for scalding birds.
I have, up until today, learned most of what I know about farming, animal husbandry, animal veterinary care, and butchering from a book. When you have been raised in the city, don’t have a farming background nor access to someone knowledgeable to teach you, this becomes the only way to learn.
My friend Clarence was butchering his turkeys today, and upon hearing his technique, my ears perked up and I asked him if I could help. Not only was it a chance for me to learn by doing, but also it was a chance for me to get behind the camera and document the process!
We had discussed the various ways of killing a turkey and when he asked me how I did it, I told him we cut the heads off. ‘That’s how we did it on the farm’ he told me. ‘I don’t do it that way anymore’. A long time ago, an old Jewish Rabbi taught Clarence how to butcher turkeys the kosher way. Since learning from the Rabbi, Clarence has never looked back. ‘You sever the jugular’ he said, gesturing to his neck with a slicing motion, then telling me how this technique keeps the bird from flapping around, risking hurting itself and/or you in the merry dance. ‘They only flap a bit at the very end of their life this way’ he told me.
Until today, I had only read about this technique. This not only sounded like a much better way than I had been doing, but also it was the way that Joel Salatin described dispatching chickens and turkeys in his books. According to Salatin, it is the most humane and effective way to do it; the animals fall unconscious and die, but their heart works until the end to pump all the blood from the body and veins. Thus, the animal is clean for the rest of the proces; the part that makes it kosher I imagine.
I have been thinking about attempting the process of Salatin’s description since reading about it. However, I have previously had terrible experiences with attempting to slaughter animals by following a book’s description and had tried all sorts of ways to kill chickens. I found that there is technique involved in each form that simply does not get translated well, or I didn’t understand clearly. Finally, after putting several chickens through misery in my attempts to dispatch them ‘ethically’ and ‘bloodlessly’, I decided I would simply cut the heads off, and keep the suffering to a minimum. At least that way, I reasoned, they are dispatched quickly. It might not be very artful, but it was effective.
However, here was an opportunity to learn first-hand a better way under the guidance of someone well versed in the art; so I leaped at it.
Photo documentary: The slaughtering process (graphic photos included)
NOTE: this documentary and step by step will work for turkeys, chickens, and ducks (and their wild equivalents).
Step one: catch the bird by the legs and tie it up from its feet, high enough over the ground so its head is up off of it by about 6 inches (see fifth photo below). When catching the bird, grab it by one leg, then the other, being careful not to get hurt by the wings. Most turkeys are pretty benign once you get a hold of them by the feet, but you should be cautious during the process of catching them because their wings are powerful and the claws on their their feet are sharp.
Locating the jugular vein on either side of wind-pipe.
Holding the head, cut the jugular veins on either side of the neck.
Step two: grab the bird by the head and sever the jugular vein, do this on both sides of the neck. The jugular is on either side of the wind pipe which runs along the centre of the neck, below the beak. Be sure to cut deep enough to have the blood flowing fast, not a slow drip. You will know that you have cut the jugular when the blood-flow is strong. It may even spurt a little. Once the jugular is severed on both sides, step away from the bird, out of the reach of the wings. During the bird’s ‘last gasp’ they will flap their wings several times and you don’t want to be in the way. You could be hurt, or they could break a wing.
Cutting into the jugular vein.
A good steady flow of blood lets you know you have cut into the jugular vein correctly.
Hung by his feet, cut and bled, this Tom is in the 'throws' of death.
Step three: place the bird in hot, nearly boiling water for about 10-15 seconds. Be certain the bird is dead. He will have his eyes closed and there will be no more movement from him. Carefully take him out of the half-hitch knot and place him in 180 F degree water, not boiling; you don’t want to scaled the skin or meat. Be sure to completely dunk his body for 15 or so seconds (Clarence says 10, but he counts slow!).
Dunking the Tom in hot water to make the feather plucking easier.
Step four: remove the feathers and the pin-feathers (re-dunk the bird if the feathers do not come off easily).
Let the plucking begin.
De-feathering, a close-up shot.
Step five: Remove the head and neck. To do this, you want to cut the skin around the neck and pull the beard back over the head. Then, find the aorta and windpipe, get your fingers under them. Then, cut into the chest wall, careful not to rupture the stomach and spill the content. Cut through the layers of skin, and then rip the fat with your hands, pulling it gently away from the stomach which will be located behind a wall of fat. Once you have located the stomach, pull gently on it and get it out of the chest cavity. Then hold the aorta and wind-pipe and and cut them off as deep into the chest as you can get. Then, peel it all back over the head, turn the head gently to find the joint where it attaches to the neck and cut between the head and neck joint. This will sever the head without having to cut through bone.
Cut skin all the way around the neck, below the beard in case of a Tom.
Locating the wind-pipe and aorta.
Gently pull stomach away from chest wall and out towards head.
Stomach being pulled out of chest cavity.
Sever head (and stomach, wind-pipe, aorta) from the neck at the joint where the head meets the neck.
Wind-pipe, aorta, stomach and neck off the bird.
Cutting off the neck.
Step six: Remove the lower legs. To do this, cut between the joint and sever the cartilage. This way, you don’t cut through any bone and the leg comes away easily.
Cut between the joint, through the cartiledge and sever the lower leg.
Within minutes of his death, the Tom begins to look a lot like Thanksgiving dinner.
Step seven: remove the oil sac. At the base of the bird, just above the tail is the oil sac. It is under the skin. Cut the skin, and gently pull away the skin and the oil sac as you go.
At the base of the tail is the oil sac, remove this first.
Step eight: remove the anus, being careful not to cut through the colon. To do this, cut the skin on either side of and around the anus. At this point, Clarence tells me that it comes in handy not having his left thumb and index finger tip, ‘I can use it to remove the stomach contents and not worry about my nails rupturing the contents!’ Incidentally, he did not lose them to the butchering process, but to a dynamite mishap as a young child.
Cutting around the anus, careful not to sever the colon and spill its contents.
Anus removed and colon tube exposed.
Step nine: Remove the innards. To do this, reach into the cavity with your hand. Roll your hand to one side, detaching the innards from the chest wall. Repeat towards the other direction. You should then be able to feel the heart and lungs. Take hold of these and gently pull your hand out from the belly cavity, pulling the contents with you.
Carefully removing the innards from the turkey.
Step ten: Once the innards have been removed, carefully cut out the heart, liver, and gizzard. Slice the heart in half (butterfly) and rinse of blood. Cut the liver away from the gall, careful not to spill the gall bladder contents, rinse. Cut the gizzard away and then carefully butterfly the meat, being sure not to cut into the crop and spill the contents, rinse. Put these items to one side with the neck. These pieces are kept for cooking and are cut up small and used to make the stuffing.
Carefully cut through meat surrounding the gizzard.
Behind the meat is the gizzard, a small pouch-like stomach full of grinding stones and undigested feed.
Carefully cut the liver away from the gall bladder, then rinse it clean.
Neck in two pieces, liver between neck, then heart, and gizzard.
Step ten: cool the bird. Place the bird in cool water to chill the meat completely and give it a final rinsing.
The final dunk, cooling the meat.
Finally, you have your turkey ready for the table or the freezer!
Three Tom turkeys now ready for the table.
Great post. A couple years ago when I was contemplating processing my own chickens, a could find nary a picture. Now they are everywhere, thanks to the magic of blogs!
Thanks for the pictorial.
I’m going to pass this along on a small town forum where they’re looking for info on slaughtering and butchering. Great info!
Very informative. But what about spilling all that blood- don’t you have bears around?
EJ-yes, good point you raise about the bears.
Here at HDR, we take care to catch it in a bucket and bury it deep in the garden. We take all the unusable innards and compost and/or burn them. Also, the bears are now beginning to move higher up in the alpine following the food. Another point to our butchering later in the year; fewer bears around.
Clarence has cats that get free access to it (the blood and certain innards, like the lungs and kidneys).
Others let the eagles and ravens take it all away. The stuff doesn’t sit here long, there are tonnes of anxious winged scavengers who make swift use of it.
YOUR A FU**ING SICK ASS MAN. IF THIS HAPPENED TO PEOPLE, DO YOU KNOW HOW FU**ED UP THE WORLD WOULD BE? ITS PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO ARE RUINING EVERYTHING FOR THE PLANET AND ALL OF MAN KIND. DIE ALREADY OLD FAG.
Kenzie,
What did you eat for dinner and how do you suppose it died?
Keep it clean if you want me to keep posting your comments.
the bad language again, makes an argument pointless and meaningless.
Howling duck looks like you have now been truly annotated into the ‘bad person’ catergory…welcome!
Welcome to the world of sausage trees, turkey breast bushes and vegetarian wild carion birds!
You have arrived!!!
Have another drink looser,The man is slaughtering a bird not a baby,how do you think it was done IDIOT
added this site to my favorites. Will be processing two turkeys soon & wasn’t sure how. This is going to be a HUGE help! Humane,very clear & step by step. Thanks!!!
Hey Andy,
You know, I too had to refer to my own site! When I came to do it myself on my own a few days after learning. It’s a lot to remember for a newbie. Glad you find it helpful.
cheers,
Kristeva
Great pictorial, we do our’s like Joel and Clarence. The only difference is we tuck the legs for our customers, so the turkeys fit in the roaster better.
Great pictures – glad you had great weather, it sure makes a difference.
We ended up with a high percentage of toms this year, I’m hoping they don’t begin to fight before the big day.
Fantastic post. I just can’t get enough of good information from the experience of folks doing what they do.
So glad that you came by our blog…
peace
Great post. Thanks for the pictures.
Grammy
Trapper–the birds are just cooling at the moment, we later tied them, wrapped them, and weighed them. Also the giblets went into a ziplock bag inside the birds, ‘just like the grocery store does’.
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The leg tucking I was talking about, just involves an additional slice in the skin near the butt, and then the legs are tucked through a what it a hole basically in the skin while the carcass is still warm and before cooling.
I’ll post about our procedure when we do our turkeys.
Could you tell me where to make my slice to tuck them in. Please my chicken legs were straight up after i butchered them lol
Thanks for this web site it was very helpful.
When in doubt, use butcher string and tie them down for roasting! I don’t make a slice anywhere except where I take their innards out.
Kristeva
Trapper–when you do, perhaps you can ‘ping’ this post to your post.
Good idea HDR, and I keep forgetting to say Clarence is a treasure, and love the finger shots, my dad was an adventuresome lad himself and lost the tips of his fingers playing with blasting caps, at the age of five. It was a 5 mile horseback trip to the milltown where there was a doctor in residence. Our neighbor also was missing fingers , and for the longest time when I was little, I assumed everyone’s Dad was missing some part of their fingers.
Clarence is a treasure–I consider him to be my ‘hand picked’ or ‘chosen’ grandpa (a term I learned from his son when he was describing a good friend as his ‘chosen’ brother).
One of my grandpas was missing a finger too, it was to a motorcycle chain!
I think this is actually pretty cool. I’m always learning new things about this stuff. I would like to have a farm of my own one day and your website is cool. Must of took lots of time and patience to do.
Well thanks for making it–bye.
Great post –
& brave of you too, I know you’ve seen the wrangles Stoney’s had with the “Animal Rights” brigade over the way he chooses to live (ethically, & responsibly IMHO).
I’ve found this description really interesting & will suggest we give it a ‘go’ ourselves, when preparing our goose for Christmas Dinner (we usually tackle a traditional medieval mulit-bird roast with goose, capon, wild mallard & grouse).
Our own method is to calm & then hold the bird still after which we shoot him in the head, being the swiftest, most painless method we’ve found so far at least, in lieu of a large enough humane despatcher.
However we found the plucking process tricky as we didn’t have access to hot water & had to start a record-time plucking to render the gander naked! And removing the feet was, err, entertaining….. putting the feet in the door jamb & closing it, then pulling like crazy in a sort-of bizarre tug-o’-war – but it works, this method is especially effective for removing the tough leg sinews.
Incidentally don’t be tempted to do any of the above, on a breezy day – otherwise you end up looking like Frosty the Snowman & by the time you’ve finished, will have your own makeshift pillow/duvet, will sneeze for weeks afterwards & still be picking tiny, irritating feathers from each & every orifice from here until next Thanksgiving!
Thank you so much! This was very informative. I’m just reading theory of all this at the moment but seeing clear, color pictures of things like this is very helpful. Many homesteading books only have drawings and it’s impossible to understand anatomy in all its gory details from them.
Not sure yet if I could do this in real life, but I’m definitely not eating turkey or chicken as long as I’m unable to bear the full responsibility of my choices. If you can’t kill it, you can’t eat it. Anyways, thanks for showing this. I wish people would understand that no matter how “awful” it looks, the birds in the industrial butcheries go through much worse treatment!
Em-thanks for the feedback! Yours is exactly the response I was hoping for–to be helpful to someone who was struggling like I was. I know how difficult it was for me to find good info on this stuff too and why I decided to do the ‘gory’ post.
I encourage you to try the butchering process. It is not easy at first, but once you get a few birds under your belt, I assure you that you will feel good about it and much more at ease with the whole process. I can say this with confidence because of my own emotional trajectory in the past few years, and especially since the hands-on lessons with Clarence.
In addition, I can see that you will do fine simply by reading through your thought process about it all–very similar to mine. You are on the right track!
Let me know how you go when you ‘pluck’ up the courage, I’ll be interested to know.
Great post.
What strikes me most about it is the fact that you felt the need to put up “graphic post” warnings. Granted it’s true, but it’s a sad indictment at how far removed so many of us have become from how we get our food. People are so used to going to a store and getting plastic wrapped food that they don’t realize that an animal actually gave its life to feed them– and that’s sad. But there is hope. I think people are finally waking up to the truth in food.
Jen–how true it is (that people are very removed from the origins of their food). For example, when I was vegetarian, the most common response was: You mean you don’t even eat chicken, or ham?
If you would like to see what fellow ‘Conscious Conscientious Farmers’ blogger have put up with (and know why I put up the warnings I did), please see: Stonehead ‘How to skin a rabbit’ and the comments that he’s gotten for that post (which is not nearly as graphic as mine)!
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This is great info, I’m going to kill my first on Monday or Tuesday just in case I slip up I’ll have time for a store bought. I love the step by step. One thing you didn’t mention is the removal of the lungs, I’ve read they can be difficult??
Wish me luck.
Thanks you so much.
Very clear and easy to follow. I could not have asked for a better path.
Very well written and illustrated post. While I don’t kill and butcher my own, I’m not so far removed as to not know where it came from.
My father told a story from when he was a kid ion the 20′s and 30′s of how they”d butchered a cow. The cousins said “We ain’t eatin’ that ol’ dead cow!”
So my grandfather took said old cow into to town and the town butcher wrapped it for him.
Cousins thought that was the best beef they’d had
Ventured to Stonehead’s Rabbit post. Bunch of idiots that posted there. You might have missed on them because as one of Stonehead’s posters mentioned, Turkeys “aren’t cute fuzzy bunnies.”
Happy T-Day
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Jeff–nice story about the cousins! As for the turkey comment not being ute, fuzzy bunnie’ is said by people who have not raised turkeys– I find them wonderful, charming, curious and intelligent creatures. In fact, mine tend to like to join us for morning coffee on the porch.
If you’re new to this, remember to remove feed & water from your birds: the evening before, if you’re going to butcher early in the morning. And the very FIRST thing you mus learn is how to sharpen a knife!
It’s better to leave them water, they bleed out easier and taste better.
Throw a few bags of Ice in the water helps to absorb some water.
Leave them in there for about an hour.
The Turkey will not be as dry.
Wow – great post. It was hard to look at a few pictures, but I felt like it really helps us understand how spoiled we are in our grocery store culture.
I have recently made the decision to move to buying all our meat from small-scale free run organic farms, partly for health but mostly because I could never give up meat and yet also couldn’t reconcile myself to being complicit in the suffering of animals. It is more expensive and a little more inconvenient, but I wish we could help more people understand how important it is to do so.
I think it’s terribly sad that three generations of people now are so far removed from from our food sources that we forget the tremendous effort and cost involved in raising an animal for food. How can anyone in their right mind believe that you can hatch, raise, and feed a chicken for months, then slaughter, clean, pluck, package, and transport it, all for $6 – and still have profit left over? We have lost all perspective on what good food should actually cost, and our competitive consumerism has allowed us to turn a blind eye to practices that responsible farmers and hunters alike would never, ever condone. The animal rights activists often point a finger at are the ones who are working tirelessly towards a reasonable solution – require an appropriate investment and effort for the luxury of meat.
Thank you for showing that you have to know about your animals and how they are raised, and that involves the slaughter process. Jamie Oliver came up against the same issue when he televised a lamb slaughter – if you can’t bear the thought of the couple of seconds of fear or pain in the slaughter process, how can we bear the idea that the animals suffer for months in battery farms? Ridiculous. Thanks for showing the truth and making these folks face their own hypocrisy.
Hey! This is totally cruil!! You are killing a bird for no reason! We are humans!! WE DONT KILL LIKE THIS TO EAT, WE’RE SMART ENOUGH TO FIND ALTERNATIVES!! – IF OUT IN THE WILD TAKE FOOD WITH YOU!!!
IF THERE’S A HELL, YOU’RE GOING STRAIGHT TO IT!
where i live vegetables do not grow for over 6 months of the year whereas meat locally and humanely raised is readily available. i think i have a smaller impact on the overall environment by eating meat that has never travelled more than 200 miles throughout the winter. also at over 7000 feet many humans do not do well as vegetarians.
It is not cruel. The fact is that we eat meat. I could say that plants have feelings too and that picking lettuce out of your garden hurts them. I don’t live out in the wild the wild lives with me. The fact is WE DO KILL LIKE THIS TO EAT! This has been going on for centuries. Look in your Bible even Jesus ate meat and yes someone had to kill it. Jesus fed a large crowd of people with fish. The fish had to die first before they could be eaten. The fish had to be gutted as well. So no…we are not going to Hell….
It would also appear I Roycroft is not smart enough to know how to spell though!
It’s ‘cruel’ not ‘cruil’
I could have more empathy with these people if they actually made reasonable, non volatile and confrontational postings.
I also wonder just how they think food reaches the super market. Was a magic wand waved and hey presto there is fully gutted turkey in the chiller cabinet?
Congratulations on getting your first raving comment from an animal liberation nutter. Of course, once you have one, you’ll soon find yourself with a whole flock cackling away at your heels and occasionally leaping up in a desperate bid to peck out your eyes.
How dare you I Roycraft!
It’s not cruel. My dear friends from Howling Duck Ranch are doing this in the most humane way possible.
Not everybody has needles to inject animals with (besides, you can’t do that if you are going to eat them!)
Great POST by the way, I love it. I’m planning to butcher about 5 roosters in the upcoming weeks so we will see how that goes…. Hmm…….
Cheers
Mitch
Wonderful post! We did our first Turkeys this last fall, and I wish we had read your post first. My dad and I were just about beaten to death by the big tom (43# dressed out for the oven) as we were “killing & bleeding” him. With a new baby due this spring (our own, human that is) we are scaling way back on what projects we start. Small garden, bees if they make it, no new critters or projects…
I found you through “meat” Ebey Island Farm.
WOW, those are some good looking birds! they are so fat and happy! Very well done, clear instructions and very good photos! Thanks
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Inspiring, informative and a fact of life. Thank you.
To begin with I must congratulate you on putting up this most informative post. It is truly amazing, however I do have one question for you: why do you slit the jugular as opposed to merely beheading them? Is it just for the accuracy? So you don’t cut too low with an axe? And while I’m already at it, I have something that foes for both the rabbit post and here. People that don’t like to see things like this and don’t have positive feedback please keep your wits about you and come up with an intellegent argument. If the method of slaughter bothers you, say so clearly, and present an alternative. And although it feels strange to be asking this at fifteen years old, please do said steps in CLEAR INTELLIGIBLE ENGLISH. Lastly to end my rant, if you have not seen a pack of wolves take down a moose, and heard its squeals of terror while attempting to defend two young calves who are slaughtered before her, only for the mother to be eaten from the rear up while still alive, the wolves going blood drunk, and tearing out her anus, intestines, and other inner organs, while she moans with pain beyond any of our imagining… Please keep your feeble arguments to yourself. Don’t forget that a potato has every single vitamin in it necessary for us to live. Kenzie and I Roycroft, would you like them baked, or mashed? Butter? Hell no, that comes from animals and is not necessary for you to live…. Good day.
Josef
I don’t cut their heads off for a couple of reasons: one, the heart soon stops bleeding and as a consequence, they don’t bleed out completely, and two, the birds flop around far too much when you cut their heads off which can bruise the flesh (it is true what they say about running around like a chicken with its head cut off!). I find the kosher way of cutting just the jugular a far superior and more human way of dispatching them. They lie still while bleeding out and only have their last little flap as they gasp their last breath. This final flap also helps push the last of the blood from their system which leaves the meat really clean.
cheers,
HDR
Josef, young man, you need to write a book and put this wolf passage in it. I was both disgusted and amazed! Good point.~~~Ana
Thank you for the great info. I just finished butchering six chickens and I wish that I would have found your information before I started them. I used to help my father when I was young on the farm but I never paid much attention as I wished I would have now. They came out fine but it seems like it took me for ever. I, as many that didn’t know your way, chopped their heads off with an axe. I have four turkeys to do soon. I really want to thank you for all the pictures. It is really going to help. I also printed your whole procedure to have on hand when the time comes. This will be my first time ever doing turkeys. Can you tell me what the best age of a turkey is to butcher? I have no idea on when the best time is to butcher them. My father has passed and like I stated earlier I wish that I would have paid more attention. As for the people with the bad comments, they really need to learn that without folks like you helping teach others the proper way to do this job there would be a lot more suffering animals out there. I wounder what they are going to do if the day ever comes that they can’t go down to the local store and buy thier food. They will starve while we go to bed at night with full bellies. Thanks again
Hey Lance,
Yep, it’s for people like you (and me before I learned) who have had little or no experience that I made the post. When I first tried doing it I could only find a description in a book. Needless to say, the experience was miserable; both for me and the chicken! Glad you found it useful. Also, take a look at my chicken butchering page for the more updated way (first I knock the chickens/turkeys out before slitting their throats). It makes for an even more humane butchering process as they are unconscious when you cut them. But, their hearts are still beating and thus they drain their blood swiftly.
As for when I butcher my turkeys… it is more a weight thing than a date thing. I like to butcher them when they are about 16-25lbs. Most folks don’t want the huge turkeys any longer. Mine get to that weight in about 20-24 weeks or so. Some grow faster than others. The whites being the fastest growing, the males are bigger than the females. Do check back here and let me know how you go with them! I’ll be butchering mine the first week of October for our Thanksgiving.
cheers,
HDR
Good evening!!
Thanks for the great information. We just finished processing 4 turkeys…2 toms and 2 hens. They were day olds on June 1st..so just a little over 4 months old. Our biggest Tom was 25lbs…and the smallest hen was about 18…
We had a nice cool October day. I was so glad to find your pictures because I was wondering how I could boil enough water to scald them for plucking…but the 55 gallon drum cut in two over a nice big fire worked great. We just kept adding cold water to keep the temperature down. We did find that if the water gets too hot, or if you leave them in there to long…that’s not good:)
We are going to roast one on Wednesday evening for dinner…I will try to remember to let you know how they tasted.
Regards,
Jason
Glad to be of help! Sounds like you had good feed and healthy birds. Yes, the 55 gallon drum over a fire works but you do have to be diligent with it. It does make a nice, simple, ‘back in the day’ kind of feel for the whole processing piece though doesn’t it. I do hope you drop back in to let me know how they tasted. I’m sure they’ll be the best you’ve ever had (if you’ve not done this before). I know mine are fantastic. Incidentally, what else are you raising?
cheers,
HDR
Thank you for posting this, i have extra roosters, may be i can fill my freezer with them, just could figure out how to do it, hopefully this post would help me to get start.
Great photos ! I always have had problems with stomach. This might help with the 10 I have to do next week. My father in law taught me, he raised turkeys on their ranch while growing up. One thing extra he added to before cutting the jugglars was to poke your knife up into the mouth and into the brain for the kill. Also we would take an old material or woven feed sack and cut a whole in the bottom corner and stick the birds head through it and then wrap the rest of the sack around it to keep them from flopping until their competely dead and the blood has drained.
Hello Tony,
Thanks for the additional info on how you folks do it — the feed sack is a great idea. Because mine hang from the trees while dying, they don’t damage themselves by flopping all over the place. In fact, they don’t flap at all except for the ‘last gasp’ as it were.
PS. you may also wish to look at my chicken butchering page. I knock them unconscious before slitting their throats which not only is more humane but also the flopping becomes a non-issue.
You can take an extra large road cone and cut the bottom of it off and put the turkey in it with the neck extending out. It the cone is large enough the part you cut off would be the right size for a chicken as well. You can nail or screw them into a tree or a frame with fender washers to keep the screws from pulling through the rubber. It keeps them from flapping all together. It also keeps them calm so they don’t release ‘fear’ chemicals into the meat, which you would in turn eat and is unhealthy.
i loved this info. this year was my first time helping butcher turkeys (25!!!) with my neighbors and i wish i had had this info then. many many thanks for posting with clear pictures. next year we will do it this way.
i am glad people are willing to share this kind of information as these are skills that could so easily be lost. i think these skills are a huge part of local food sovereignty and will become more important as we have to move away from an oil based economy. thanks again!
Came to this site from your chicken butchering site, to see if there was a lot of difference.
No, the process is pretty much the same, as I find it to be in my own practice. Just more pulling to remove the crop. What does differ is the witness factor.
I butcher a whiterock chicken with about as much compunction as I pick a tomato, they are inbred to the point of idiocy, and, while they deserve the respect one accords to any living creature, their basic function is as a food source. Young roosters of a laying breed seem more intelligent and I thin them by “irritation factor”. “You’re beautiful,baby, but no one crows under my window at 3AM and lives.” Hens too old to lay are deemed to have earned their retirement.
Turkeys are yet another step. While chickens will cheerfully stand in line to catch bits of offal from their siblings, turkeys seem to be a little upset by the butchering of another one. “Hey! What’d she just do to Joe?” “Yeah, what was…oh, look at the junebug.” “Joe who?…Yummy, feathers.” So I remove the bird I’m killing from the other’s sight.
I don’t even want to talk about ducks. Know somebody wants a bunch of drakes? It was easier when I was a hunter. Tame ones have to really tick me off.
Mary Zeman, lake Arenal, Costa Rica
guys, you’re killers T.T How can you kill it and then eat it? Why they’re not eating us? KILLERS!!!>=(
Why do you have killing animals, when you have lots of another food without not killing animals? huh?
K-I-L-L-E-R-S-!-!-!
I’m a vegetarian, cuz I have some heart.
You guys, have NO HEART.
Killers.
I can tell you are very young, or atleast I hope you are based on your grammar usage. It’s good as a young person to be idealistic and want to change the world, but you need to direct it properly. These animals were, obviously, raised kindly and dispatched humanely. They lived natural, healthy lives. Not everyone is going to be a vegatarian. We were not created to be vegetarians. We do not have blunt teeth, as vegetarian animals do, our bodies are meant to have protein to survive. Vegans and vegetarians have to come up with ways to replace the protein that meat would otherwise supply. We are omnivores and it’s okay if you choose to fight nature, but don’t expect the majority too. If you want to rave at someone about the atrocities of farming there are plenty of folks who behave atrocious towards their animals that deserve it. I’d start with the big, commercial farms that have broilers caged in pens so small the birds can’t turn around in because any excersize would mean potential weight loss. Leave these folks alone…there are plenty of villains out there, but small, family farmers aren’t them.
Thanks so much for the wonderful post! We’ll be doing our first butchering of chickens next week and I’ll be printing this out to refer to during the process. I hope we don’t run into any probs. Will let you know how it goes.
We are processing Black Turkeys. We have found that after defeathering there is still a black substance left where the feather was. Is that a normal thing? It really looks unappealling is there a way to avoid this. When you squeeze it the black stains the skin and your hands.
Hello Anne,
What you are talking about is the coloring where the feather inserts into the skin. Yes, it is quite normal. The ‘unappealing’ feeling you have is normal too! I had it at first also. It is just that we have become so accustomed to the white turkeys of corporate Ag. I have found that once the bird is cooked, the color is less obvious, and no big deal. In fact, you get so used to it that conventional white birds begin to look like they are lacking something!
Go forth and be brave. It is how food should be. Consider them like a wild bird and so much more nutritious. Who knows, the dark coloring (like berries) may be full of antioxidants. Enjoy!
Kristeva
How can you feel that this will ‘help’ anyone who cares about life, the world and all in it.
People who are behaving in this manner are not being human.
Savage, why eat an animal just to wipe your ass with the tree you allowed to be cut down.
I’m confused as to why vegetarians and animal activists are even visiting this website. Why would you be searching the web for slaughtering turkeys if you aren’t interested in doing it yourself? It seems they have nothing better to do then to inform others, in a childish manner, that we are evil for eating meat. Killing and eating an animal IS behaving as a human and has nothing to do with not caring about life. When a human kills a human, that is NOT caring about life. Putting animals above humans is NOT being human.
Anyways, to comment on what this website is intended for. A lot of websites describe how to slaughter a turkey but with no illustrations. I found the pictures to be very helpful. We have slaughtered chickens before but never a turkey and I was wanting to know the best way to do this. Thank you for taking the time to illustrate this.
If this were facebook I would LIKE your comment. I agree with every point you made.
thx was doing a report about turkeys helped alot thx again!
Great Blog very informative. Kosher butchering really works well. I was taught this in 1983 by a Jewish Rabbi and Butchered many chickens. It seemed like a more peaceful way for our food to stop breathing and less dramatic with no flopping and damage to the meat. About 15 minutes hang upside down works well. I used this as an assembly line and would do 10 chickens at a time. Great Post!
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omg stupid vegetarians u think u would be here on earth today if your ancestors weren’t eating meat n killing animals ? U think that ur computer n f*ing life would be here if it wasn’t the meat of the dead animals n their meat and the world would be a better place ? you think that after you have told your self that you hate meat your body doesn’t need the protein u vegetarians are just like religious people or worst i guess.
Thank you so much for this information and the excellent photos. I’m about to start the first of my turkeys and really wasn’t sure of how to go about it. I live in Australia and there seems to be much fewer people here who raise them – well at least certainly in the area I live. What age range are turkeys generally eaten and how old is too old?
Hello Karen,
I generally raise them between 20-22 weeks because my client’s don’t want huge turkeys. At that age, they are generally between 16-24 lbs. You certainly can let them get older and heavier, it’s really up to your preference. I do know that beyond about 8 months old though they will begin to get tougher. They would still make find ground meat if you have the means to prepare that, but if you want roasters then keep them younger.
Good luck!
Kristeva
Hello Kristeva
Thank you for your reply above.
Oh my goodness…what a debacle it was doing my turkeys! Due to a back injury I asked for some assistance from some friends to come and help me with 4 turkeys, 3 ducks and 7 roosters. As the bloke doing the slaughtering was not familiar with using a knife to cut the jugular he elected to use the axe and chop off their heads, believing this would be less traumatic for the turkey – you know, quick and instant! Oh my goodness! The turkeys took ages – like several minutes – to stop their frantic wing flapping. After the first bird was killed we put the others inside a feed bag with just the corner cut off so the head and neck were exposed. This at least reduced the wing flapping and protected the meat but I doubt did little for the bird’s actual experience. Without a doubt I will be using the throat cutting next time. It must be a great shock to the birds nervous system when the head is chopped off for it to continue flapping like that rather than when the more subdued throat cut/bleeding method shown is used. A very confronting experience and one we can and will improve on next time – out of respect for the birds as much as anything else.
Great post! i will be going over this again soon. I will be butchering my cornish X chickens soon and then alot of birds toward the end of summer. Great reference here.
=)
This is really gruesome, but it is quite a skill you have. Most of us will eat turkey, but don’t want to think of how that turkey sandwich got to our plate. I’m sure this is much more humane than a factory-scale turkey slaughtering factory.
I ended up at your site because I bought a frozen duck, and was wanting to identify those strange little parts that came inside the duck. I googled, “duck heart liver gizzards, and clicked on a photo. Thanks! At now I know which piece would be the foie gras piece.
I just scrolled up through the comments and read some of the interesting debate. I’ve been vegetarian, vegan, and uhh. . .an omnivore, I guess you’d say. I don’t necessarily believe that it is the natural thing to eat meat. My mom and much of my family is in Mexico, where people eat significantly less meat for financial reasons. The Aztecs farmed corn, bean and squash, which is a balance diet to which meat does not necessarily need to be added. My husbands a die-hard omnivore and we debate this a lot when I go through a vegetarian phase. I eat less meat now because I have MS and have noticed a correlation between relapses in my symptoms and a higher protein diet (I don’t know if that is a medical fact for others, but it is for me.) My point is that die-hard vegetarians and die-hard vegetarian haters need to be a little more understanding of each other, and you can’t just say eating meat is human nature because there are many parts of the world where it is not. To quote Rodney King, “Can’t we all just get along?”
. . .and one little question: Do you think that this method of slaughter (the blood draining, upside down part) is more or less humane? Do the turkeys seem to be in lots of pain? Wouldn’t chopping their heads off, old-school style, be less painful?
Hello Anna,
I used to chop their heads off until I learned from Clarence and read Joel Salatin’s many books on humane farming practices. The answer is yes this is the more humane way. The animals barely even wince when you cut them and they lay there bleeding quite calmly. This way they only flap around for their ‘last gasp’ of life. When you cut their heads off they flop and bounce around for minutes at a time. This can not only hurt the animal but also bruise the flesh. They can end up breaking wings and all sorts. Having experienced both methods first hand, I know this way to be the better.
thanks for your input and questions,
Kristeva
People have canine teeth, the purpose of which is to eat meat. I don’t eat much meat either, when i do, I prefer meat that came from the back yard. I know what they ate, I know how they were treated in processing. A lot less dicey than stuff from factory farms.
Killing the poultry the Kosher way IS the best way! After all we have been inundated with news reports of animals that have bacteria (including poultry) I don’t trust that the meat I am buying (all neatly wrapped to boot) in my local grocery store is really safe to eat. I know that when I raise my own ducks, turkeys and chickens that they are being well cared for and fed with the highest quality grain I can afford. Even though butchering ones own animals is NOT pretty we do have to eat! I would rather butcher my own animal than take a chance on what the grocery store is selling me.
your photos were great for rookies, I ve let my turkeys grow past 24 weeks from ignorance on how to butcher them. what would be your recommendation for grinding the meat ? what amount of fat and what type of fat should I add in with the meat? thanks again for the detailed lesson!
Hello!
I would still butcher and leave them whole myself as 24 weeks is not too old for that. If you really want to grind the meat, I would grind it with no added fat at all. You want your turkey to taste like turkey and not pork or beef.
Good luck!
K
Would you suggest a first timer learn this not just from pics and a blog but actually have an experienced person assist them? I’m guessing if we spill stomach or colon contents we have ruined the bird? We are raising 3 BBBs and it is our first time. Also, we are pretty sure one of the 3 is a hen – might be a dumb question, but do we treat her the same way at butchering time? Oh, and best age for butchering a BBB? Thanks so much!
HDR,
What a great blog entry. I have butchered many chickens but last spring my wife and I go the Murray McMurray “homesteader delight”. Now I have two ducks, two geese and a turkey that need butchering. With my chicken experience and your instruction, I feel confident about the turkey. Also, I love the wood-fired ‘half-barrel” kettle. I have been heating water on the stove and carrying it outside. This approach is much better, free and safer.
Thanks for the great post!
I just found your blog. I have purchased 14 heritage birds hoping that they would be ready for Thanksgiving, but I am not sure if they will, they will only be about 5 1/2 months old. We butchered our chickens this year, but a turkey, we have yet to tackle. Do you know how old his turkeys were and/or what breed they were? They were good looking table birds when all was said and done, and that is what I want to have as well! Thanks for the post and any info you could pass on. Sue olddrumfarm@gmail.com
Hi Sue,
I’m not sure how old Clarence’s turkeys were but I usually butcher between 20-22 weeks old. His breed was the Broad Breasted White (standard turkeys). I use the Broad Breasted Bronze (a heritage breed that is closer to the wild birds). The whites, because of the human interference in genetics etc, grow at a much faster pace. The bronze ones are smaller at the same age. Clarence’s turkeys were all over 24 lbs, some even close to 30. Whereas mine were 16-22 lbs at finishing.
Hope this helps!
Kristeva
This was so helpful! One note, when removing the head you instruct folks to remove the stomach too, but I think it’s actually the crop that comes out at that point.
Hello Melissa,
It is the crop (which many think of as the stomach), which is distinct from the muscly stomach also known as the gizzard.
Kristeva
THANK YOU!! We butchered one of our two yesterday and used your method. It was far easier and cleaner. The turkey kind of went to sleep when we hung him upside down. The slitting vs. chopping the head and the gutting pictures were extremely helpful. We just ordered the book as well. Keep the inspiration going, we appreciate it!!!
Mandy in the Oregon woods.
Excellent tutorial. Thank you for the information about capturing the turkeys by the legs.. I will be trying this in a few weeks. Currently butcher the chickens in this very same manner. Have a killing cone attached to a barn to prevent them from bruising. Thinking a larger sturdier cone for the turkeys is in order for our farm. I am a city girl that became a farm girl 6 years ago and never want to leave. Love it.
Great info! Going to butcher some of our own in the next couple of weeks. Just wondering how long do you need to let the butchered turkey cool before you can cook it or freeze it? I was told that with chickens, you have to let them basically age for a couple of hours to let the meat break down, otherwise they can be tuff when cooked, so not sure if this goes for turkeys as well?
Hello Michael,
You want to cool the animals down in ice water as fast as humanly possible. Make sure the insides get cooled through. I have cooked and eaten the birds the same day as butchering without toughness. The toughness has much more to do with the age of the bird at kill than the hours ‘rested/aged’ post kill.
cheers,
Kristeva
Hi,
I “harvest” my chickens by same method. My question is this: I always age my chickens a few days in the refrigerator–sorry, my experience has been different than Kristeva’s, does tend to make them more tender. How long to age my turkey before cooking for Thanksgiving? Suggestions?
Thanks!
Jo
Hey Jo,
Thanks for the different experience. It is always good to share them and learn. So many factors come into play when you begin to raise your own food! I would suggest that you do the same with your turkeys. Again, I cook them right away but also after a few days in the fridge. I can’t say as I’ve noticed a huge difference between them. Maybe it’s my lack of pallet! lol. I do know that now I struggle to like/enjoy the chickens from the grocery store. There is no texture or flavour to them. It grosses me out!
Regards,
Kristeva
I plan to dispatch our turkeys this weekend and insight into a proven process is extremely helpful. Thanks to you and Clarence for the education.
YES! Thank you for sharing… we are about ready to butcher our bronze turkeys ourselves. Last year was a mess. Ugh. Thank you for sharing such a great humane and EZ way!
Thanks, good pics.
I have a question about something… you mentioned that they only give one last “flap” as they breathe their last, however when I watched the following video…
… the turkey seems to really flap and flap (and it seems that he has used your same kosher method of slaughter). My husband and I are getting ready to dress our first bird ever. Will there really be this much flapping? Should we try to hold it still as in the video, or just let it go? Would you recommend using a killing cone to keep it still?
Thank you for posting this information! It’s been very valuable to me!
HEllo Megan,
When I do it, I don’t try to hold the bird down as this fellow does. That may make the difference. I simply cut them and leave them to hang quietly until they fall unconscious. I also don’t hang a 10 lb weight from their beaks. I’m not really sure that this is necessary nor do I understand why this fellow does it. However, each finds their own ‘best’ way of doing things. My experience is that when I do them, they only flap for a few seconds at the very end of their conscious life.
Good luck, let me know how it goes for you!
Kristeva
Thanks very informative, I just bought 2 turkeys and this will be great when the time comes to get them on the table..which brings me to my question, how old should the turkeys be before I slaughter them??
It really depends on how fast they grow and how big you want them at the table. Rule of thumb is anywhere between 16-30 weeks.
Good luck,
Kristeva
Hi,
I have been breeding, butchering and most of all eating turkeys, ducks, gees and lambs for years.
Always looking for more education, reading this site, I stumbled upon the earlier comment from Kenzie from 2 and a half years ago. What gets me all the time is the sentiment that the chicken in the supermarket probably jumped in front of a bus, but the tuna in their shopping basket died of loneliness. The rest is a murder, right?!
I used your technique yesterday and everything went great! I can’t believe my Toms were 34lbs, 32lbs, and 30lbs – they won’t fit in the oven… It looks like we’ll have the hen. I found that a cheap PVC cutter, which is like a pair of pliers with a razor sharp blade on one side and a pipe groove on the other cut the neck right clean off no fuss.
Hey Wilbur,
Glad to be of help! Any chance you can email me a photo of those pliers you are talking about? I’d like to find them (and, I guess with your permission, I could post it on the blog too for others reference!). Usually the local grocery store is happy to cut large birds in half with their big saws. That’s what I’ve done in the past at any rate.
cheers,
Kristeva
Thanks a bunch. Raised on a farm in Ohio. Now 30 years later, have three turkeys I’ll be readying for Thanksgiving in Salcha, Alaska.
It’s -35 at the moment and I’ve forgotten about the process.
Wish me luck.
LOL, good luck Brian! I don’t envy you the cold hands. But, you can warm them up inside the turkey while you eviscerate it.
kristeva
This is the most awesome turkey 1-0-1 guide out there! Thank you so much for sharing! There was a mistake in my order so the turkey was delayed and I have to pick it up just 9 hours before the Thanksgiving dinner – reading this has made me much more calm and comfortable about my first turkey EVER
THANK YOU
Chris
Oh, by the way! I don’t have a saw or ANYTHING like that, only a butchers knife (is that the name for one of those big SOB’s?)… Can I use that to remove the neck? Hope you can answer within 12 hours, because I am cooking thanksgiving in Italy and the preparations (preparing the bird) will take off in exactly 12 hours… THANK YOU AGAIN FOR THIS INFORMATIVE AND GREEEAAAAT SITE…
Sorry if this is not within the 12 hrs! But, yes, the saw will work for the neck. Having said that, a large butcher knife will work too. Good luck!
Bien provecho!
Kristeva
Super helpful. Did my first 2 this week and am ready to do more in the future if the birds taste great- we shall see tomorrow.
The first took longer and the second made much more sense. Thanks for the instructions.
Great article. We will be doing our first tommorow and it would have been a tradgedy without reading this article. You guys did great. When a reponsible human harvests an animal for food that animal suffers a much more tolerable death than being torn apart by a coyote or starving to death in old age.
I forgot to give the update on the taste. We had friends over for Thanksgiving so this is a pretty legit test, as our friends would tell us if it was bad.
We brinded the 24lb hen, which was very fat I might add, for about 16 hours, did NOT stuff her bc it would have taken too long to cook, put carrots, onions, celery and a cut up lemon inside, used a foil wrap, and let her cook. AMAZING. Super juicy and tender and everyone said if it wasn’t the best ever it was definitely very close. Will certainly do this again.
Christmas weights 21lbs, so a little more manageable.
I did notice they were walking very labored the last month or so and the feed store owner told me that was probably bc they were eating the same layer pellets as my layers and there is too much calcium and it effects their leg tendons- those were REALLT thick. Any truth to that?
Love the tutorial, the second one took less than 5 minutes on the actually butchering side. And one last thing- If people like Kenzie would care as much about actual babies as birds and fish and be as passionate about saving them from being murdered then the world would be a better place. Thanks again for the help.
Very useful, in time for my first time tomorrow 30/12/2011. Although done loads of pheasants etc. My question is the oil sack at the base of tail, is it important in prep’ I didn’t know about it ? I know it’s late in the year but the bird had a reprieve for Xmas, it’s a New Years Day bird.
Hello Nick,
Yes, it is important to take the oil sac off. At least, that was how I was taught and I’ve never cooked a bird with it still in place!
Kristeva
dont cut turkeys to death if ya do theyll die ya know =(
Would the process be identical for a wild turkey etc.?
Yes, it is exactly the same.