Thoughts On Raising Turkeys
This past weekend I butchered the rest of my turkey flock. There were 5 remaining birds, all hens, and I really wanted to complete the unpleasant task over the weekend, since the weather is getting chilly and the turkey coop is not insulated. The turkeys would have been exposed to cold temps soon. One of the most important issues to me, throughout this project, has been the humane treatment of my animals. So, without further adieu, I spent the weekend finishing up this necessary task.
| Cute little turkey poults with their Brinsea brooder to keep them warm. At this stage, it’s hard to imagine butchering them someday. |
It seems strange to walk outside now without hearing the tweeting calls of my turkeys. And I admit that I rather miss scratching them on the chest when I bring food and clean water to the pen. The things that I don’t miss are: corralling them when they decide to fly out of the pen and eat the last of my kale; dodging curious beaks as they attempt to eat any button, snap, or tie on my clothing; rounding them up into the coop at night; and generally worrying that they will get loose and and be killed by coyotes or hit by cars. I can’t say that this whole project has been easy, but there is a deep sense of satisfaction in knowing that we have those turkeys tucked away in the freezer to feed my family over the next year or so. I’m also glad that I don’t have to buy more meat bird feed for them. That stuff increased in price almost $5 per 50# bag in the last 2 years, and I’m sure it will continue to go up as the harvests fall short.
| A little more than a month old, these poults helped clean up the bugs in my garden. It didn’t take long for them to get too big for this. |
There are many things to consider before purchasing your own turkey poults to raise for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. You need to seriously evaluate the space that you have available for the birds to grow. I wanted to make sure that my turkeys had pasture to forage. It is important to my family that the meat we eat comes from animals raised with a more natural lifestyle than the confinement methods used in mainstream livestock ‘farms.’ The re-purposed tool shed I used as a coop is about 6′x8′ and really wasn’t large enough for the 17 poults to grow into. Two of them died young, and I butchered 2 early, but there was barely enough space for the remaining birds to roost at night. In the future I would not plan to keep more than 10 turkeys in the same shed. The pasture was a pretty good size, approximately 20′x35′ and seemed adequate for the 4 months that they lived there.
| Getting big…they were about 3 months old in this shot. |
Before raising turkeys I had heard people say that they are so stupid that they will drown themselves by looking up into rain. I heard that they are difficult to raise and will look for ways to kill themselves. I found very little evidence to support these claims. I did have one that died at 3 or 4 days old when its head got stuck under the Brinsea brooder. But other than that I found them to be smarter and more curious than chickens and generally pretty hardy. You do need to keep them warm, but not too hot, when they are little…just like chickens. Then again, maybe I was just lucky.
| My crazy turkey coop worked out pretty well, but got a little crowded toward the end of 4 months. |
You should know that you are unlikely to save money by raising turkeys, unless you raise your own grain. Just before Thanksgiving, the stores sell turkeys at ridiculously low prices as a loss leader. After adding up the costs of raising my turkeys, I determined that it came to approximately $1.30 per pound. This does not include the cost of butchering the birds. If you can’t bring yourself to do the processing at home, you will need to send them off to a processing facility. I have no idea what the cost is, but you can be sure it will significantly increase your cost per pound.
| The large bronze Tom dressed out at 18 pounds. It was a challenge to butcher him by myself. |
Do you know if you have the physical and emotional strength to kill your own birds? If you plan to process them, don’t get attached! I didn’t allow myself to name the birds or think of them as pets, but still, it was more difficult to kill them than it is to kill chickens. The turkeys just seemed smarter, gentler, more tame than any of my chickens. They followed me around and acted like I was their mother. It is tough to chop off the head of an animal that thinks you’re its mother.
In addition to the emotional fortitude that you need to kill the bird, you need to keep in mind that they will weigh 12 pounds and up after dressing. Are you physically capable of lifting a heavy bird to chop off its head, dunk it in a scalding pot, and then hang it by its feet to pluck and disembowel it? I did the butchering by myself (with the exception of friends who wanted to buy birds and process their own) and it is pretty tiring work. The largest bird dressed out at 18 pounds. I originally wanted to bring some of them up to the 20+ size range, but gave up on that idea when I butchered the first one. You need to have a strong back to schlep a large turkey around, or you need to have another person on hand to help.
| This was one of the last birds I butchered. It dressed out at 15 pounds and went in the freezer for Christmas dinner. |
I knew some folks who bought turkeys to raise for meat, then kept them as pets. They couldn’t bring themselves to butcher these curious, friendly birds. At first I thought they were weak and misguided, but now I completely understand where they are coming from. It was a tough job to process my turkeys this fall. But now that I know what turkeys are like, I would feel even worse about buying one from the store, thereby supporting an industry that treats these curious animals like giant potatoes that have no feelings.
I plan to show the process of butchering turkeys in an upcoming post. I’ll include photos which might bother some people, but will warn everyone at the beginning of the post. Out of curiosity, is there anyone who will be really grossed out by graphic photos of this process? I don’t want to scare readers away, but I also think it is good for people to know how to do this. Thanks for your input!
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