The Deed Was Done

Warning! There will be few pictures here but the descriptions may be graphic.

We ate Dinner last night. The majority of guests, actually they are family, said it tasted like turkey. In the next few days we'll try to post a story of the processing on the Suburban Sharecroppers blog. Until then I'll share a few highlights. I also have to give thanks to brother-in-law John for his help. We had quite an audience in attendance. I think some couldn't believe we were actually going to perform the deed. The event was documented with two cameras at times.

Dinner was a big bird. The plan was to hang him upside down to calm him and facilitate the bleeding out. After finding a limb strong enough on the pecan tree the area underneath was cleared. With good reason. With a wingspan of over 4 feet, When the neck was cut his 4 feet of wingspan went into overdrive and Dinner was swinging back and forth. So much for calming. After subduing the bird and finding the other vein to speed up the bleeding, he did calm down. He was dead.

Warm water was next and the plucking of the feathers. John did yeoman's work helping with the feathers, and there were plenty of feathers. It didn't take as long as we had been told to pluck the carcass, but there were some pen feathers left that I needed a pair of needle nose pliers to get out later. John also wielded the pruning loppers used to take off the feet (which will be used for stock), the head and the neck later.

The evisceration went smoothly other than the finding all the parts that needed to be removed. The last animal I cleaned was a fish and there isn't too much going on there. The pig I helped with was large and the opening was big. With Dinner the hole was smaller and it was dark in there. At one point I wished I had a headlamp on to get a better look.

After the cleaning was finished the bird was washed and weighed, 40 pounds! We don't/didn't have a pan big enough to fit. We cut the carcass in half, froze one side and cooked the other.