A REAL THANKSGIVING BIRD
(Page 5 of 7)
October/November 1998
By the Mother Earth News editors
Turn the bird around. At the base of the tail is a nub of oily, fatty tissue. Cut it off. With the knife and pruning shears, cut off the feet at the hock joint (this is the joint a few inches above the feet). Next, use the knife to open the vent enough to put your hand inside the bird and pull out the insides. With some dexterity and care, you can do this without breaking into the stomach or intestines. Removal of the innards will take more than one pull, but in time you will have the guts, stomach, heart, liver, lungs, and everything else out on the table. Carefully cut the gall bladder away from the liver (the fluid in the gall bladder will sour any meat it touches) and save the liver. Save the heart, too. Use a hose to get the inside of the bird squeaky clean.
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It's important to hang and cool the bird at 30°F to 50°F for about 12 hours before you freeze or eat it. This cooling process will yield a more tender turkey. If it's too warm to hang the bird, cool it for 12 hours in a refrigerator. Don't be surprised if the first bird you dress Out ends up looking a little ragged. You will learn an awful lot about the anatomy of a turkey with that first dressing out, and you will be both quicker and neater with your next bird.
Marketing
Assuming you've raised more than one bird, you may have one or more to give away, barter, or sell. The latter can be tricky. It is legal anywhere to sell someone a live turkey, but if you sell someone a dressed-out bird, you may run afoul of various local, state, or federal meat-packing laws. As a practical matter, selling a few prepared birds to people you know is seldom a problem; it has never been a problem for us. But if you intend to advertise or sell prepared birds on the open market, you will need to become an approved processor or sell your live birds to someone who is.
Factory-farmed turkeys in the supermarket usually sell for under $1 per pound at Thanksgiving time. But people will pay much more for a superior bird. We're not in the turkey business, but we have friends waiting in line to buy a bird each Thanksgiving. The price? Two dollars per pound, dressed out.
There is profit in such a bird. A torn turkey will consume about 75 pounds of feed by 24 weeks. At today's feed prices, that's about $11 worth of feed. Add $4 for the purchase of a started bird and the cost is about $15 at slaughter. Such a bird will dress out at roughly 20 pounds. At $2 per pound, the bird sells for $40. You do the math. One of our birds last year dressed out at 32 pounds! A family paid $64 for the bird, and after tasting their purchase made us promise to raise them another this year. Once you have raised and roasted one of your own free-range turkeys, you'll know why.
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