Last year, our generous neighbor gave us 2 Narrangasett Turkeys; one male and one female. He told us to watch either one and if there were signs of a crop defect to let him know. Within a few weeks, we noticed the male’s crop was rather large and protruding. So our neighbor gave us another male. Our desire is to continue the breed, as they are somewhat rare, and so we named the non-defect-male Leroy and the female LouAnn. We knew our plan was to process the other male so we named him TG for Thanksgiving. In October, we noticed TG would not be quite ready for Thanksgiving so we renamed him Scrooge. He still wasn’t quite ready by Christmas but today was his day.
This was our first time processing a turkey, and a rather large one at that. It was a blustery 35 degrees so we were all quite cold! However, the benefit to processing animals in the winter is there are no insects to bother us or the meat. Kathryn, Graham, Adam and I traipsed out to the turkey yard to catch him; we had been discussing the best way to butcher him without harming ourselves in the process. It was fairly seamless and the processing was much easier than a chicken. The turkey cavity is so large, it was much easier to pull out the innards and we learned a few lessons regarding dunking and plucking. All in all, it was a good experience.

We also processed 3 rabbits today. Mama Mopsy had bunnies 10 days ago and Mama Flopsy started pulling hair out today so we are expecting bunnies in the next 2 days. We had 3 bunnies from Mama Flopsy’s last litter that needed to be processed today. It has been awhile since I personally processed a rabbit so it was a good review for me. Graham learned how to process for the first time today. It was a successful day!

After processing in the morning ( and cleaning up), Adam and I clipped Leroy and LouAnn’s wings so they could start enjoying fresh pasture. We really should start our own YouTube channel to encourage other homesteaders what life really looks like; it’s quite comical sometimes. The wings are clipped and they are happy foraging for bugs with the goats, bantams, silkies and guineas.

Adam is smoking the turkey today; he just made a bourbon, maple glaze to pour over before he moves the turkey to the oven for a few hours. We are so thankful to raise these beautiful animals so we can eat delicious meat and appreciate the process of raising our meat. Processing day is very sobering and we don’t take the lives of these animals lightly. We are grateful and appreciative of the life they lived.