Dressing A Turkey

[svnmag]

Hopefully a couple tips. I'm not the best at dressing game and like to watch this every so often. I like to keep field knives a bit better than "paper cutting" and the assorted fillet knives for the final trim as "razors". I keep surgical gloves on hand and gut immediately after the kill. IME there is little to zero odor if the cavity is cleaned out with the guts still steaming. I'm extremely squeamish about birds. Cold turkey guts can stink like hell and I don't want them around when trimming meat. Same deal with huns and pheasant. Haven't shot a sharptail in a few years as I don't know anyone who wants the meat :

 

[LBrandt]

Fart after you have gutted a few pheasants and it smells the same, strange aftermath. LB

 

[Rowdie]

Just skin them like a pheasant and cut off legs and breasts.

 

[Rowdie]

Just skin them like a pheasant and cut off legs and breasts.

I never gut them.

 

[riverview]

cant believe you wouldn't pluck a turkey.

 

[Rowdie]

cant believe you wouldn't pluck a turkey.

I did the first few that way and then said screw that. They're just big pheasants to me now.

 

[risingsun]

 

[SDMF]

Fillet the breasts and thighs off the bone and file 13 the rest. No reason to be in the body cavity for me as I don’t eat any of the organs.

A slim blade, 3-5” long, ideally with a bit of a trailing point. Sharp, very sharp.

 

[svnmag]

Yeah, I just skin and breast. As said above they're just big pheasant. Personal thing with me--I don't want guts present during final processing.

 

[svnmag]

It takes less time to gut a bird than a trout.

 

[svnmag]

 

[Maddog]

Fillet the breasts and thighs off the bone and file 13 the rest. No reason to be in the body cavity for me as I don’t eat any of the organs.

A slim blade, 3-5” long, ideally with a bit of a trailing point. Sharp, very sharp.

X2 -- "sharp, very sharp ...." Key words IMO too.

After breasting and removing some of the thigh meat, I then go in and remove the heart and gizzard too. If you want you can also more easily remove some of the tendons and nearby meat from the breasts while the breast meat is still attached to the breast bone. Doing it later with the breast removed, is quite a bit harder for me.

 

[Maddog]

Off topic, but I still owe aguywhofishesandhasgreatinsights a short video of a quick method of skinning a squirrel. Doing the cross-body cut in the fur at the middle of the back. And then pulling ("undressing") the squirrel with opposing hands. It makes quick work of skinning them. We so seldom target them any more while hunting. I always give them a pass when I am out hunting, even though we love to eat them, as their population has been severely dented where I have hunted them.