With last weekend being Thanksgiving (or a couple of weekends ago since we are late posting), we hope you were all able to enjoy some time with friends and family, even if it may have been through a screen or at a distance.
The weekend before Thanksgiving was our annual turkey butcher, but due to COVID restrictions and low numbers in birds this year, we kept things small with three amazing volunteers helping collect birds out of the pasture, cull, pluck, gut, clean and bag.
We butchered 16 turkeys ranging from 21 to 43 pounds. Most went to people for their Thanksgiving feasts. We had a couple of people (including ourselves) take two and proceed to portion the birds up to have meat in the freezer throughout the year. From our two birds (83 pounds hanging weight), we put 54 pounds of meat in the freezer, which means about 65% of the birds are mostly meat vs. bones, guts, feathers, feet, neck and head. The breasts were over 8 pounds each, and they were sealed and frozen along with legs, thighs and wings. The carcasses were used to make turkey soup, and we ended up canning 32 quarts.
One family that we sold birds to wanted to have a turkey cook off. They purchased four birds from us that were all about 24 pounds. Sounds like a fun way to spend a COVID Thanksgiving to me!!
We hope you all had a wonderful holiday however you chose to celebrate!!
Recent Comments