In this on‑farm video, Victor Justin Rhodes (the “Turkey Whisperer”) walks a group of homesteaders through the entire process of catching, killing, and processing pastured turkeys. The crew first troubleshoots a malfunctioning scalder and an immersion heater, then sets up a herd‑catching system using a large killing cone, gates, and coordinated human effort to safely corral the birds. Once captured, the turkeys are killed, scalded at 149‑150 °F, plucked, eviscerated, and cooled in an ice‑water bath before being stored in a freezer for long‑term use. Throughout, the participants discuss best‑practice tips (e.g., using a metal wire to secure legs, timing each step, managing water overflow) and safety concerns (e.g., handling strong birds, avoiding equipment burns). The segment ends with a brief promotion of the “Rooted” series, a masterclass on livestock harvesting, and a free trial for Abundance Plus, encouraging viewers to learn more about farm‑scale butchering.
Chapters
Can I have our drill? And yep, nice. And let's switch this out for the big turkey cone. Actually, this might handle a small turkey. This— let's switch one of these out. Went to turn on the scalder and the light comes on, the temperature control does not. Turn it on and off, that didn't work. I could see it a little bit. There's like a little, I don't know, glitch. I'm hoping that it is on and stuck on 149, which is what we like to keep it on. If our scalder is busted, we're in big trouble. I mean, it's probably not as bad as if the plucker were busted because we could do this over a fire. Kind of. Let's make sure our plucker's working. Let's see if this is warming up. What's wrong? These aren't working. We have an immersion heater, Jonah. We have an immersion heater that helps us do this when we do the scald. Do you know where that is? It's in the barn. We could do it in here. We could scald them in here. Oh, that's true, true. I don't mind flipping it, trying to see. There it is, there it is. Oh boy, it just burned out. It's working. Getting a little smoke out of that though. That's fine. 149. Okay, I already see the bubbles off of it. That's kind of crazy. I literally just tapped it, turned it on and off a few times, and it worked. Kill, scald, pluck, eviscerate, eviscerate, eviscerate, gut by 5 seconds, got already up to 61 degrees. Cool down, ice bath. Let's go get the ice, my guys. I have put too much water in this thing, guys. Because you put the turkeys in there, it's just going to overflow. I have this hose right here, guys. We've got it filled up. All you gotta do is find the end of it and we'll close it off with this clamp. We've got water in it so that we can siphon. I'm siphoning because I already put ice in that. Maybe we could bucket it out, but then we'd have to put more ice in there. Go ahead and open it and put it all the way into the bottom. If we have too much water in there and you put turkeys in there the water just starts to just overflow and come out, and it's just raw, pulchy water everywhere. It's just not best practice. Is it working, guys? Yes, it is. And you're getting it from the bottom, so hopefully it's not as cool because the ice isn't down there yet. Is it drawing down, Mr. Brown? Hey, do not move. Hands up. I accidentally slept in. Did you? 1 hour to butchering time. We've been staggering back our milking time so that we can milk early today. Chores are done. We are right on time. We got the crew— Jason, Sow the Land, and his father-in-law Randy. Yeah, we're ready to do it, man. We're ready. And look who's here. Look, 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 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 hurt 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 push them on this, guys. You guys could put out your arms. Good. Man, turkey whisperer. Well, that was peaceful. Absolutely no problems. Our Skaldor heat up. Yep, it's on 150. What's it like to butcher a turkey? Well, it's just a bigger chicken, that's all. It is much stronger. I've got a scar on my wrist from them kicking. This is the big thing. I mean, you get more bang for your buck. Because you can, you can pluck, you can scald, you can eviscerate a turkey in the same time as you can a chicken, but you're getting like 3 times the meat. This is the trick to staying— to keeping your eyeballs— putting a screw above the killing cones and absolutely wrapping their legs with a metal wire. So Jason and Ben killing So wait, does that mean you're the killer? I mean, you're the killer. I'm the killer. I won. Okay, so is the winner the killer? Yeah, that's the most exciting part. Can you get through that little cone? Just barely. Oh, that's good. Just get another one going. This is the bottleneck. This takes 3 minutes to bleed them out. You can't speed that up no matter what you do. Holding, plucking, 2 minutes, and eviscerating, when you get good at it, a minute. How is it? Good. Huge, huge. This is a big, good size bird. Is this— they're into it, the evisceration. We got their turkeys back. Willie, I hope we have enough freezer space. 20 turkeys in a 1 upright freezer, that's a lot. It's a year's worth of turkey right there. 1 a month, with a few to give away and to give to you all for helping. Hey, trade. I didn't have to raise any for us this year, so that's a good deal. That'll be nice. That's quite a big guy. Big old snapping turtle. Where was he? Right here in this little pool. Wow. How'd you see him? Uh, I was walking up with the baby. I was gonna put her feet in the water and I saw that move. Yeah, that's not— yeah, so we're gonna relocate this guy. Teddy, you will get snapped your foot off, buddy. Live to have a bad attitude another day. It is potluck time. How appropriate, we butchered turkeys this morning, we're gonna watch a show about butchering. That's an all-in-one rice and meat dish. The toppings— thanks Meg for— Meg from Hollow Homestead for making that dish. And they brought homegrown watermelon that turned out great. Rooted Episode 7 is out now, along with Episode 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 on Abundance Plus. That's like over a movie's worth, guys. I hope you can get in there and enjoy it. Rooted 7 about, I don't know, the art, uh, the craftsmanship, the philosophy behind butchering. I think you guys will really enjoy it. Plus, if you really then want to go and do it, we put a master class up on how to harvest a lamb on farm and how to harvest a sheep from the kill all the way down to the skinning, the gutting, and the halving, and getting it ready for the butchering. So I don't want you guys to miss that. I would encourage you to check it out. We got free trial on Abundance Plus. You can go to abundanceplus.com, and of course I'll leave the link in the description.
