Butchering My Bird

Once I got my turkey to my dad’s house, I had already planned on skinning and butchering the bird into manageable pieces. I had originally planned enchiladas because reports from more than one source said wild turkeys were gamey and dry. When I pulled the breasts off the bone, after skinning the turkey, it became obvious to me that the meat was far too tender and succulent to hide it in enchiladas. I hung my bird up by its feet at my folks house and cut the second joint of the wings off and saved the wings for the feathers, since I like to tie flies for fly-fishing. Then I removed the beard by pulling on it and cutting off the skin to which it was attached. I put the beard in with the wings. Then I skinned it, starting at the knee joint and peeling the skin away from the leg. I put a relief cut on the inner leg to get the skin away from the drum sticks. Once I got past the legs the skin became easier to remove because there was a gelatinous fatty layer under the skin. I pulled the skin over the drum stick like portion of the wing and then down over the head. At that point the neck was exposed and I cut the neck off. After the skin was off I cut the tail feathers off and put the meaty parts of the tail fan in a box with borax along with the beard and wings. I left the box at my folks house for my dad to ship to me later. Once the bird was skinned I cut the legs off at the knees and put the legs in with the feathers I'd saved. I then took the carcass and washed it well in the sink, picking off some of the fatty tissue and getting all the down off that floated onto the meat while skinning it. I carved the breasts off the body and cut the thighs and drumsticks off as well. I cut the wings off the back. Then I put the wings and the back in a one gallon zip lock bag, the breasts in another and the thighs and drum sticks in a third. I stowed the zip lock bags in my mom's freezer and bought a small cooler from Wal-Mart. The next day I took the frozen meat, packed it with some blue ice packs and lined the cooler with newspaper. I strapped duct tape around the cooler and checked it for my flight home. When I got to the other end the cooler came off the luggage carousel and broke open the duct tape, spilling my frozen meat all over. I re-packed it and was on my way home. Next time I’ll strap more duct tape around the cooler. Next installment cooking my wild turkey.