How to Field Dress Turkeys
Americans have been in love with eating turkey since that first Thanksgiving celebration at Plymouth Plantation in 1621. Most people cart their frozen turkeys home from the supermarket, but hunters know the joy of bagging their own wild birds. There are many delicious recipes for cooking wild turkeys. However, before you pull out those cookbooks, be certain that you have properly field dressed that bird.
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Instructions
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Field Dress Wild Turkeys
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Tag the turkey. Leave the tag on the turkey during the field dressing process.
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Dip the bird into hot water and pluck the turkey's feathers. Use this method when you plan to roast, smoke or deep-fry a whole bird.
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Skin the bird when you intend to fry or grill the breast fillets.
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Insert a sharp knife into the point of the turkey breast and cut between the tail and the breast point. Cut from one leg to the other.
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Pull the turkey's back and breast apart.
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Insert your hand into the body cavity between the intestines and the back. Extract the lungs, liver and heart. The guts will come out with them.
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Rinse the bird with clean water inside and out. Let the body cavity drain. A 5-gallon bucket will come in handy for this task.
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Split open the neck and remove the windpipe, esophagus and crop.
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Clean all of the blood out of the body cavity.
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Put ice into the body cavity to keep the carcass cool.
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Place the carcass in a large, unscented plastic bag. Put the bag into an ice-filled cooler. Keep it iced until you can get it home and freeze it.
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Check out "Field Dressing and Butchering Upland Birds, Waterfowl, and Wild Turkeys" by Monte Burch for more useful tips on dressing your gobbler at Amazon (see Resources below).
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Tips & Warnings
If you plan on having your turkey mounted, do not field dress your bird. Most taxidermists would rather dress the turkey themselves. Just be sure to keep the plumage clean and dry, try to limit feather damage and keep the turkey cool.
Field dress a turkey immediately to prevent it from spoiling and to preserve its flavor. If you bow-killed your bird, you must dress it within 1 hour because the arrow probably ruptured the intestinal tract. Feces released into the body cavity spoils the meat.
