Turkey Butchering

You read that right. Turkey. Butchering.

As I was getting ready for work my friend Stella sent me a text:

Sometimes we start our day this way...usually because it is so hectic in my house

she starts the conversation.

This is how the conversation progressed:

So see? You are not alone in thinking that I have a strange job.

The day progressed and we butchered turkeys. I did not take photos of any of the blood and guts, so do not worry about seeing that. I might go into some details though. If you are someone who does not believe in eating animals, please read no further.

The farm we were at raises their own food to feed their own family. They are also Ojibwe Indians. At the start of the day we all came together while the adults of the family explained why they raise their own animals for meat. A few reason are:

• Hormone Free
• Antibiotic Free
• Fed non-GMO food
• Raised in a wonderful environment with plenty of room and food

As they hatched at bought their animals they would explain to the animals why they were raising them. They told their animals that they were going to be their food and then they thanked them. The Ojibwa belief is that the animals are happy to give up their lives to feed those who care for the properly. So this farm practices this with their animals.

We went outside and students were sent to grab some turkeys from the shed where they had been led to the night before. Then the turkey was held and calmed, it's head was placed into a bucket (5 gallons maybe") with a hole in it. Most of the body was in the bucket but someone held the feet and the part of the body that was out. This seemed to have a calming effect on the turkey.

The farm adult then slit the throat while thanking the turkey for being willing to feed them. The turkeys were surprisingly calm. They did not injure themselves and they did not beat around wildly like you hear about in the expressions "running around like a chicken with its head cut off". After the turkey passed, the head was cut off.

Then the turkeys were brought to the garage to be dipped and de-feathered. This is where I was working that day.

Here they were dipped into very hot water. This loosened the feathers so we could de-feather them. We hung them from ropes by one foot and started pulling feathers off of them. My hands were pretty sore from this. We did about 30 turkeys and 10 chickens!

The above turkey is almost completely de-feathered.

After de-feathering (listen, this word sounds so much better than plucked, ok?), the turkeys were taken over to another table. At this table we had a vet! Really! A vet came and gave the students a bird anatomy lesson! They learned about the heart, intestines, gizzard, and more. She then emptied their cavities and took the feet off. 

During this part of the process one of the farm dogs, a pug (who is rather large), kept stealing the intestines. At one point she was eating the intestine of a turkey and backing away slowly. The owners had said that she would be sick if she continued to eat these. (I am sure we would be ill if we ate intestines too.) As she backed away an intestine, about as long as she is, was hanging out of her mouth and she was swallowing it whole. I walked up to her and pulled it out of her mouth. It seems to keep coming out. Ryan talks about it as one of the grossest things he has ever seen.

Some of the above have been gotten some not.

After the last of the feathers were gone we bagged them up and placed them in the freezer.

When we ran out of bags we used freezer paper. The farm adult showed us how they wrapped meat before we had plastic bags.

That is a chicken. This chicken seemed so small compared to the turkeys!

Though I had butchered chickens in the past I had never done turkeys. They were very large! I did learn some thing that day. I enjoyed learning about the way the Ojibwes treated their animals they keep for food. I learned that it was much cleaner to slit the throats of the turkeys than to just chop the head off. It also seemed much more humane. I learned how to pluck a turkey (I had skinned the chickens I butchered so I had never pluc...I mean de-feathered before). Finally I enjoyed how so many people helping made the work seem less like work and made the day less tedious. This was a great way to demonstrate the saying, "Many hands make light work."