Talking Turkey
East Tennessee Turkey Guard Dog
Turkey has always been a staple in our household. I say always, but in reality, at least since we started having kids. Not just something for special occasions or holidays. We like turkey for its size and versatility, but it’s more than that. Our budget was tight and every dollar counted. Turkey is generally inexpensive but if you shop sales after Thanksgiving, stores practically give them away. At a very low cost, you can fill your freezer with turkeys, and a single bird can contribute to several days meals as a stand alone, as an addition to pasta or soup, or whatever your pleasure is. One of my favorites is to make a broth from the bones and to make a soup. Savage but delicious.
Having raised turkeys, I know that producing a finished, consumable product isn’t cheap. When a processed frozen turkey is being sold for not much more than it costs to buy a poult (baby turkey) that you have to raise, protect and turn into a finished product, the finances don’t make sense. Plus they have transportation and all of the other costs of doing business to account for. I try not to over think it. The numbers don’t add up and I don’t have time lose myself on a conspiracy rabbit trail.
I have turkey on my mind for several reasons. Of course, it’s fall and Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching, but it’s more than that. We are raising turkey and processing time is rapidly approaching. The birds look great and their days are numbered. They’re nearing their feed conversion plateau and we’re closing in on the time where every day that we don’t process them is a liability. How so? Despite our best protections, the critters like to try to beat us to our harvest. Mature turkeys are big enough that the birds of prey typically focus on smaller targets, but the foxes and bobcats and skunks and raccoons and even dogs can be a real menace. It’s unbelievable how quickly months of work can be completely destroyed. The raccoons are particularly frustrating. They will snatch a bird’s head off and leave the entire carcass behind. It’s as if they’re doing it for fun and it’s a personal attack intended to send you a message. Gang land style.
I’m bouncing around the idea of saving some of the hens and two toms to use as breeding stock, but we’ll see. This time we are planning on parting the birds out, pressure canning the stock and dark meat, and freezing the white meat. Freezing is a great way to preserve flavor and freshness but in principle, we’re partial to preservation techniques that don’t require an ongoing electricity expenditure. The hearts and gizzards are quire tasty, especially as additions to soups or stews, but sometimes we just add them to the stock pot with the carcasses to simmer slow and low.
There are two other turkey-related topics pertaining to the the farm wothy of mention. When I got the turkeys mentioned above, my friend kindly gave me some turkey eggs as well. The eggs are tasty, but we decided to incubate these even though it’s late to be doing so.
Transillumination of an incubating egg, a modern version of candling.
In he video above the viability of the fetal eggs is being assessed by transillumination, a modern version of candling. So far, so good.
Finally, a little over a week ago, our Australian Shepherd caught a young wild turkey in the front yard. One of the kids was able to stop her from mutilating the intruder. That posed us with an interesting dilemma. Wild animals usually do not do well in captivity but they also do poorly when they’re released back into the wild injured. We have plenty of cages that we used to keep the kids in when they were insolent, so we put the dazed and confused bird in one to recover temporarily. Of course almost immediately, someone with poor situational awareness let the dog back out, and she immediately hauled ass to the cage that the bird was in, barking furiously. Instant heart attack. The end.
“It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you’re surrounded by turkeys.”
- Adam Sandler
* It seems that Warren Buffet and Joel Osteen have very similar quotes attributed to them
