OUR 2019 TURKEY BUTCHERING!

Our Thanksgiving Turkeys raising and butchering for 2019 was successful. The weather was mild. 


My turkeys are gonna make the last move through the gate.
This is will be a hard couple of days. They are one of the funnest animals to raise.

I got the turkeys moved close to the butchering station.
I sure makes it easier to do this the night before vs moving them in the morning.

*** WARNING THIS WILL GET GRAPHIC
Tim is working on getting everything set up. He took down the chicken cones.


He put up the cones that are bigger for the turkeys. Still some of the turkeys are too big for them.

Tim is working on the filling up scalder tank.

Tim added lye soap in the tank.

It helps to allow water to their skin. Thus making it easier to de-feather them.

Tim cut grooves in the board so we can put the turkey's legs in them. Our turkeys are too big for the chicken plucker. So we pluck them all by hand. This is the longest process besides getting the scalder tank up to temperature.

The ladder hold the boards and we put a big container to catch the feathers. At some point we want to have a better system. But for now this one is working.

This year we will need to pre-weigh them. We have someone buying 2 live birds to butcher themselves. So we will need to know weight.

Tim and Kaitlin got this process started. The birds didn't like it too much.

We wrote the weight on the leg. So we knew which ones to grab and not grab. 

Getting the process started. Turkey #1 in the kill cones.

Scalder tank. Finally something that maintains the temperature and is big enough for the turkeys.

It's not freezing but it is cold. Hoping the sun warms things up a bit.

Chicken part bucket. We don't waste much here.

Skylar was able to make it and help with the last 4 birds.

Tim and I worked on bagging and weighing the turkeys.

We got them all bagged and weighed. We put them back in the cooler with lots of ice. They are ready for pickup.

We are so thankful for the orders we received on the turkeys. I will say we will order more for 2020.
Thank you everyone who ordered from us!