Raised, Processed, and Enjoyed

It all started back when Jacob had an idea.  He wanted a turkey - a "farm turkey" to be exact.  Last spring we jumped in and bought 4 turkey poults.  We bought four to be on the safe side because we had heard that turkeys were a little sensitive/tricky to raise.  Also, you do not buy turkeys that have been sexed; so we wanted to try to have at least one tom.  After residing in our house in a box for a while the four turkeys moved to the barn.

Once in the barn those turkeys grew and grew.  We had 2 bronze turkeys and 2 white turkeys.  Turns out we had a hen and a tom of each!  Their names varied daily:  Cougar, Panther, Squirrel, Coconut, etc.  They ate a lot and were rather stinky (sorry, they were).

Processing day(s) came with Big Fish doing most of the work.  Four turkeys landed in our freezer nicely dressed and wrapped ranging in weight from 22 pounds to our giant, white tom tipping the scales at 40 pounds!

We practiced with one of the "smaller" birds for our church Thanksgiving dinner.  It did just fine and tasted great.  Then, we had some out-of-town family combined with more local family all converge for a glorious Thanksgiving feast.  We thawed (in the fridge - so thankful to be babysitting a freezer/fridge for my brother!) that whopper turkey for a week!  Here is a picture with the kids reminding us of the 40 pounds weight:

The challenge was to fit it all in the oven, but Big Fish handled it beautifully!

End result was delicious! We fed 28 people that day and were able to send some leftovers home with people and keep some ourselves. Yum! This was definitely a learning experience, and we are open to raising turkeys again. I do believe Big Fish would like to build a smoker first....mmmmm....smoked turkey legs!

Honestly, the barn area that was the turkey pen is already transformed. We've started a rabbitry! Come on out and take a tour! TTFN!