How to slaughter a turkey at home: how to chop, tips for beginners

Description: The ultimate goal of rearing turkeys in the backyard is to obtain delicious meat, therefore, the bird must be slaughtered. In this not the easiest process, there are nuances that indicate how to slaughter a turkey yourself at home, carry out subsequent plucking and cutting of the carcass in the most delicate way to preserve taste and give it an appetizing appearance.

At what age should a bird be slaughtered

The correct timing of slaughter is important for getting "ripened" meat in full. Poultry farmers consider it right to send under the knife only after the chicks have reached sexual maturity and gain weight only from the increase in fat and muscle mass.This usually happens 8-9 months after hatching from eggs, by which time the turkeys weigh about 12 kg or more.

Broiler breeds (Big-6, white broad-breasted and others) reach these parameters earlier - by six months or even by 4 months of age (120 days).

Fig.1 Turkeys suitable for slaughter.

The meat of an adult bird loses tenderness and softness, but remains dietary, and too little comes out of too young chicks.

2-3-year-old male turkeys, who have worked their way as producers and were kept in good conditions, are also allowed to be slaughtered. This turkey is suitable for minced meat or broths.

Important note - slaughter should be done before the molting of birds, otherwise it will be almost impossible to get rid of feathers completely.

Preparing the bird for the start of the process

To carry out the slaughter procedure as quickly, easily and efficiently as possible, it is necessary to carefully prepare the bird.To do this, the selected livestock is put on a daily starvation diet in dark pens. Fasting is necessary in order for the carcasses to be stored for a long time, otherwise the unprepared bird will turn blue in the crop and tail area on day 3, and the fat will turn green.

You should leave free access to water in which to stir a 2% solution of Glauber's (can be replaced with table) s alt for better bowel movements. You need to start giving it 15-20 hours before the start of slaughter.

The slaughter pens must be kept clean, removing leftover feed and droppings in time so that the birds do not eat them.

Methods of slaughtering turkeys

There are several ways to slaughter a turkey in the backyard, however, the main condition for competently slaughtering a bird is to completely and as quickly as possible bleed the carcass (if this is not achieved, the meat will quickly deteriorate due to bacteria, and the presentation of the turkey will also suffer ).The most popular methods of slaughtering a turkey are external and internal slaughter.

External slaughter

The easiest way is to chop off the head of an immobilized turkey lying on a wooden chopping block. Decapitation with an ax is used mainly in the immediate subsequent processing of the carcass, since the meat comes into contact with dirty surfaces from which bacteria can penetrate. This method is also used for slaughtering large or old turkeys.

Among poultry farmers, the most common external method of slaughtering turkeys is:

the bird is placed in a fixture (cone) or simply hung upside down;

Fig.2 Cone for slaughtering turkeys.

stun;
on the left side of the throat, the facial artery and jugular vein (2.5 cm below the ear) are cut in length by 0.15-0.2 cm;
bird dies from rapid blood loss;
turkey wings are fixed in the open form.

This method is cleaner than cutting the head with an ax, but pathogens can also get into open wounds on the neck.

Internal slaughter

This is the most difficult but cleanest way to get turkey meat, it keeps the product clean and hygienic and keeps the product for a long time. The "slang" name for internal slaughter is "split".

The bottom line is that a stunned bird is inserted through a wide-open beak with a knife (or a special tool such as scissors) as deep as possible into the throat and cut the blood vessels located to the left and right above the tongue.

Fig.3 Cutting arteries for internal slaughter.

It is necessary to prick with the tip of a knife directly into the cerebellum of the bird (from the bottom of the head), which will relax its muscles and make it easier to pluck it.The carcass should hang upside down with wings wide open, just as with external slaughter, while the blood flows directly from the throat and does not stain the plumage, which can then be used for household purposes. A significant drawback of the splitting slaughter method is its complexity: an inexperienced slaughterer does not always find veins the first time or cannot cut them, as a result of which the carcass is saturated with blood.

How to pluck a bird carcass

In this process, experience and a certain skill are important. The trick of a competent plucking of turkeys is the processing of the female carcass after complete cooling, and the male - in a still warm state. If the slaughtered poultry population is not numerous, the operation to get rid of carcasses from feathers is carried out manually, but if there are a lot of beaten turkeys, it is more convenient to purchase a special feather removal machine with a number of various nozzles.

Several manual plucking methods stand out:

dry;
wet;
iron.

The dry method is used when raw feathers are used to fill pillows, blankets and duvets. The material remains dry, first the flight feathers are removed, then the tail feathers and fluff.

Fig.4 Turkey carcass in a picking machine.

With the wet method, at the first stage, the carcasses are immersed in hot (but not higher than 65 degrees) water for about a minute, after which they begin to pluck. It is recommended to perform this operation as quickly as possible, otherwise it will be very difficult to get rid of the fly feathers.

To easily remove plumage from turkeys, an iron is also used in steaming mode, after straightening the feathers with a pump tucked under the skin. By stroking the carcass through a damp cloth, even the roughest feathers can be effortlessly removed.

The remaining "stumps" are eliminated with a small knife or tweezers, sharply pulling them out one by one from the skin.

Gutting a turkey

The next step after plucking the turkeys is gutting the carcass, which is carried out on a covered table. You can carry out complete or incomplete evisceration. In the first case, the internal organs are removed from the turkey, the neck and limbs are separated - such meat is stored longer. If the washed entrails are placed back inside the carcass, this is incomplete gutting, such turkey meat is stored for no more than 3-4 days.

The intestines, crop and esophagus are removed with a special cutting fork. After that, the heart, spleen, kidneys and liver are pulled out, the cloaca is cut out. For food purposes, after slaughter, the stomach, heart and liver are left.

Fig.5. Through the incision from below, all the insides and the cloaca are removed.

It is very important when processing a turkey to leave the intestines and spleen intact so that the meat is not saturated with their contents. When half gutting turkeys, only the intestines are removed, all other organs are washed and left in place, the carcass is cooled.

Cutting instructions for beginners

Cutting begins with the removal of the head, neck bones, while leaving a third of the skin. The legs are cut off to the knees, and the wings to the elbows.

Fig.6 The paws of a turkey are cut off at the knee.

The skin is cut along the ligaments at the joints of the thighs and the bird's body. After removing the entrails, the carcass is cut into pieces or cut with special scissors to butcher the bird. The stomach is divided lengthwise, the inner layer is removed.

Ultimately, after butchering the turkey carcass, the poultry farmer will have:

wings;
hips;
sternum;
back;
legs.

Short video tutorial on YouTube:

If you plan to sell or cook the whole turkey carcass, detailed cutting is not required. The main condition for obtaining dietary and tasty meat is to strictly follow the instructions of experienced poultry breeders.