Growing, Butchering and Cooking our Own Turkey

2 homegrown turkeys. It's Thanksgiving. We're cooking 2 turkeys 2 different ways. Your way, which is oven traditional. She's such a traditional lady.

I'm like, we gotta have a traditional, but also smoked is good.

My way, smoked turkey with bacon on top. I don't know if it's a contest, no, but turkey for everyone. I noticed something a little different about these turkeys. There's no labeling. That's because these are homegrown turkeys. I want to share that story with you guys. Here's some clips of our process growing these turkeys. They're huge! Everybody's huge! Oh, look at the geese! Where's the third? Oh, there. Okay, good. I thought we were missing a goose. Oh, they're adorable! All right, let's get them.

Put the opening right there and then you just herd them right into it.

You sure?

Yeah. Especially with the shavings this high. Unless they fly. That might be the problem.

The sea monsters walked right in there. Sea monsters walk right in?

Yeah, they're trying to get away from me.

Kind of works. How fun!

Look at my pretty flowers I grew.

Where'd you get those?

Um, in front of the greenhouse, the little greenhouse.

Oh nice.

And then I got these too.

That's what you did it for right there.

Yep, so I can cut me some flowers.

Getting the second batch, the second crate now. They're gonna carry it out. You want to carry it? Just right there. We're gonna put them inside the A-frame and leave them. They're gonna stay inside. Probably at least a week. I don't think they're susceptible to crows, but maybe hawks, so we'll wait a little bit. We got the turkeys and the geese right here. We need to go across the road, up through there, and about just above the The well right there.

Oh yeah, they'll herd.

You think they'll herd? You don't think we need to put up any nets? Jonah, you go ahead and open it right there and we'll have that wall. Guys, let's start hauling, hauling their stuff. You go ahead with that, Jeremiah. Look, they're starting to come. Just herd them with this.

I'll keep up in there.

No, don't touch them with it. We don't want them to learn to touch it and it not work. There you go. Just tap them. There you go, Ben. No, it won't. This fence is good. Come on, off the road, let's go! Come on, Daddy, keep going. There we go. Hey, Lily, you stay up there and don't let them go up into the yard. It's going good so far. I think they might have seen our Shaw. Come on, Lily, keep them up on the side. This is working really good coming behind them with the net.

Yeah, keep on going.

This is a really big move for turkeys. Okay, we're there. I'm so happy to be over here in this pasture. This pasture needs work. The pasture where they were doesn't. By work, I mean fertilizing. Bring this pasture up to speed with some of the better pastures on the farm, and their, their manure will do that for us. Look who showed up just right on time— the hollers. Good morning! Let's go ahead and put our gates set up across. We got our cages to go over this because they will jump up, they will jump out. It's not a terrible idea to try to herd them in there. I don't know if they will though. With this many people, we could probably surround them. I think we got more than enough people to surround them. And then let's designate one person to catch— one or two people to catch the turkeys out of the circle and then just carry them over. Yeah, so let's put the other one on then too. Then we won't herd them in. We're gonna all get in there surrounding these turkeys in a circle, and then we'll designate two men to come in and out carrying the turkeys. Okay, we don't want to put them on this, guys. You guys could put out your arms. Good. Yeah, man, turkey whisperer. Well, that was peaceful. Absolutely no problem. In homesteading, the journey is the destination, so you got to enjoy the process. We enjoyed growing these things. We'll cook and eat these things, but it will be a fleeting moment, just a fleeting moment. This turkey looks better. It's got a really broad breast, so that'll be the one that goes in the oven. This is the one I'm gonna have and get in the smoker. But before we do that These turkeys don't just appear without a sacrifice on your table. We had to butcher them. Here's one of our most popular YouTube videos. It's where we butchered a turkey long ago. That'll give you an idea of what it takes to get a turkey from, from feathers and walking around, roaming around, to something that looks familiar. This is the day. It's finally arrived, 5 months later. It's a bittersweet day. We're excited, but we're also saddened. But we're thankful for the wonderful sacrifice these guys have made. We've given them the best life possible. We've protected them along the way. They've been extremely happy, and it's going to be extremely productive and wonderful meat. All right, shut the door. Whoa, so much stronger! We got to see if it'll fit.

Oh my goodness!

Okay, he fit just barely, and I think this is one of our biggest ones. And he went in peacefully, so I'm pretty excited about that. It wasn't a huge battle. I got hit by a feather this— or wing this morning. That wasn't any fun. Holding him backwards. This is a heavy bird. This is much heavier than I anticipated. We got the medium cone, Beauty. I think we should have gotten the large cone.

I know. You can probably tuck his wing in a little more at the top.

And watch your eyes, everybody.

Where's your glasses?

I couldn't find them. Pull his head through. We're putting him in this cone because it sedates him, it hugs him, and puts it upside down. That calms him down. We want him to be calmed down. If they stress out before they, uh, are killed, it ruins the meat. Amy, you come around here and hold my legs. Now we kill just like a chicken, right? Yeah, we, uh, grab above the jawbone there. That's what I'm gonna— I'm gonna tell— I'm not gonna do it, I'm just gonna mimic it. Okay, backwards like that, right? Just like a chicken. Okay, we're gonna let it bleed out in this bucket. It's got water in it. The only pain is when you first slit across the skin, so that's why a sharp knife is a humane knife, because it makes it less painful. And like Temple Grandin would say now, where'd he go? Gone. May not be our prettiest turkey. That's all right, rinsing them off real good. Mom, this cooler might hold two. And now we're gonna cook this thing. Everybody's gonna help on Thanksgiving, right? Everybody's gonna help with the Thanksgiving meal. Little Henry, I'm thankful for you, buddy, but you are into everything, so we gotta, we gotta keep a watch on him. This cornbread though, good job. Mama's got some chicken broth. She's actually looking for some turkey broth. There it is. Nope, that's beef. So one of those says turkey. Well, I found what I saw the other day. It's just an empty bag. She said chicken is fine. Get in, Lily. Come here, please. I got the smoker going, but it's a mess out here. It's kind of embarrassing. Can you guys deal with stuff like the, the sock? Here, let's shut the store so the smoke doesn't get in here. Come on. Oh, the sock, the glove, the pump. We need to take that hose over to the shed. Must be cornbread stuffing coming on. I'm gonna make cornbread stuffing out of that whole thing. Henry, you gonna be happy? No different meal for you today, huh? They got the baby happy. Y'all keep eye on him. Looks like cornbread stuffing additions. What are you making there with that honey?

Oh good, I'm just making a tea for myself.

A little self-care. I gotta tell her, listen, we gotta enjoy this process. Because it takes way too much time compared to the time of eating it, right, Rebecca?

Oh yeah.

So we gotta find joy in this drudgery of cooking. First thing I want to do, this turkey. I wish I would have brined it. I wish I would have soaked it in some Redmond's last night. I usually do a half a cup to a half to a gallon. I usually end up using— doing— usually end up using about 2 gallons. Hopefully we'll have more memories Good memories of prepping the Thanksgiving meal together. It becomes about that, as opposed to just eating it, right? Because we eat good all the time. Come on, let's be real, we eat good all the time. This makes it possible to do this in 5 hours, and that is cutting this bird in half. Well, you're going to cut down both sides. There's some poultry shears. Oh boy, those are terribly dull. We've taken out the backbone. I'm gonna smoke it too. Rebecca had a good idea. We'll smoke it and then we'll take all the bones from this after we're done and make a smoked broth. Now we have this kill bone in here. Well, I don't know, this backbone here. We're gonna have to try to break it like this, and I'm gonna just cut this kill bone out and pull these ribs out.

See that?

It's not hard once you get going, just cutting the Ribs out. So we got halves. You just have to cut around the bone. I don't think there's easy— any easy way to do it. Maybe there is. Maybe I need to YouTube that. We didn't brine. It's not too late to salt. I need to kind of monitor you, okay? We're gonna put the Redmond's on. Whoa, whoa, that's a little heavy. Why don't we do this small, small end? Be easy. Do it evenly, okay? That's enough. Up here, up here, bro. Okay, now do this one. Maybe I should give an example. Okay, we start kind of up high. I'm facing right now with him, as surely some of you guys when you watch me cook. Look how nice and even I'm doing. I'm not just going crazy and it's going over everywhere. Just a little bit more. Just a little bit more. All right, that's good. Let's get the bacon. We can always add salt later, Mr. Brown. You cannot take it away if you overdo it. Get the bacon, please. Two packs. Henry's happy playing with that. Lunch is ready. Ooh, look at this. Wow. All right, let that cool off a little bit. All right, I'm gonna go heavy on the bacon. One pack each, which I think is about a half a pound. Yep, half a pound. And we're just going to— the bacon is going to help keep it moist, and it's going to keep it well because the fat but the bacon will juice off, but it also protects the skin from drying out in the smoker. Gideon and Lily, this didn't happen, y'all. The hose, the bucket, the vacuum. I got this on a food— what is this, a baking sheet on a rack? Just get the air circulation, the smoke on both sides. 50.

Chest. I mean, why not?

Smoking won't take any more energy to do that. It's at about 200. The cool thing about this Black Earth grill, it's a smoker and a grill, like a propane grill. We're out of propane. We can bring this up to temp quick with the propane and then turn it off and let the smoker do its magic. Empty. Hopefully it's full. Full. Hey, you made the right decision. He brought the hose over. Let's hang it up nice over there, okay? You want to carry one end of that? Let me get that end, you get that side. You're a good helper, you know that? My feet are a little extra today. I'm kind of thinking it could be because I've been good about my Lyme medicine. I'm probably having Herx— what you call Herxheimer reactions, which is basically an inflammation of your symptoms.

Am I done cleaning the porch?

Uh, not quite. Get the goggles, this fencing shut off, and that white bucket. These boys say they want to pick up in here. Yes, we got to get that truck out of here. We got to get the Christmas decorations out of here. Thank you, guys. Mom's taking a break, getting some sun. We're gonna take a minute and check up on Lily's rabbits. Happiest can be, super warm. We did get them some hay for the colder nights if they want to burrow down in it. They're nibbling on some of it. She's gotten this one really tame. Which one's that one?

This is Patty.

I wouldn't say really tame, but that was our wildest one and that's the one you're most able to pet. Midway through testing it. Oh, also basting it. Time's ticking. I brought my smoked turkey in. Look how lit Good, delicious. It looks— I think my pellets got, uh, jammed. I just don't want to fix it right now. We're coming down to the wire, so I'm just going to put it in the oven with the other turkey. Smoked turkey gravy, regular turkey gravy. There's the smoked turkey. That look good or what? Just keeping it warm. All the sides are warming up. Got the biscuits going, sweet potatoes, cornbread stuffing, green bean casserole. And one more thing, the smoked bones from the turkey. That's the head, neck, and feet. This is the traditional turkey. What do you guys think? Yeah, that turned out good. Smoked turkey cut up, ready to go. Cornbread stuffing's ready. She wants me to cut up biscuits.

Just cut through one.

Or how about do that?

Is it done?

Good to me.

Oh yeah, perfect.

Good job.

Okay, that'll work, I guess.

Got Henry a bone. Clean that bone for you. You like that? You like that? Good job, Mom. You did really good. We're thankful for you, for sure.