how do you guys go about cleaning your bird that you harvest

I actually have never cleaned a bird before, and was wondering how you do it. I will prolly hunt by myself this year(it will be my first time by myself) and if i get one, i was wondering how you clean it.

I have usually skinned the whole bird because plucking takes so long and skinning makes it easier to find any stray pellets in the bird. I hunt with some guys that only take the breast out but I can't see wasting the rest of the bird.

heat up water to about 65-70 deg. soak the bird to the point that the wing feathers come out easy, then hang your bird by one leg and start to pull, if the bird cools to fast , just heat it back up, but after the wing and tail feathers are removed it don't take much to get the rest. Gut the bird, taking your time to clean it all out...BT

I will cover how I filet out the meat, save the wings for calls and where to cut the tail.

First I flip the brid on its back as I start breast side up.

I use the smallest Rapala filet knife. Don't need nothing bigger.




I first take care of cutting the beard away by grabbing skin past the point the beard is attached. Cut this off and set it aside we will take care of this later.



Here I have grabbed skin behind the beard as it is attached at the breast.


My first cut


Finished product - note the extra skin - we will trim that later and then treat the beard to dry.



Okay from this slit in the breast where I have removed the beard I cut the skin all the way back from neck to head. Use the keel bone of the breast as your guide. The keel bone will be a whitish yellow colored hard ridge dead center between both breasts. [Note the crop or air sac sticking out]

or start cutting from the body cavity just below the breast bone straight up. I do not cut into the body cavity to expose the guts at all unless you want the heart and giblet.







Here I have the skin pulled back to the thighs and have exposed the crop to which I will trim out.



Notice how clean my hands are. This done right really ain't all that messy! ;D



Above the crop is trimmed out - just leave it there - no need to remove it.

Next thing I do is trim the skin off the drum sticks by cutting along one side and peeling it back. The below picture I am cutting the feet off at the drum knuckle. I save the feet as I use the spurs or the whole leg for hunter safety classes or the spurs to adorn a wingbone call.



Do the same to the other side.

I now cut along the keel bone (breast bone from the neck region down the breast bone to the body cavity. I then filet this off and it should look like this.



Take the second breast off and put aside - we will trim these later.

Got ahead of myself a bit but this picture shows the backside of the bird.

Notice I have not or will not cut into the body cavity. This also shows where I cut the thighs off.


Now take the legs and push flat. You should hear the thigh bone pop out of the socket and they should lay flat.
I cut from the above thigh connection through the thigh bone joint and straight back until this is free [Next 2 pictures]



That is it!

the last thing I do is I cut the wings off at the body and save for wingbone calls.



I will then cut the tail off at the narrowest point between the body and tail.



Set this aside we will mount this later.

Now I trim all loose membrane off the breast. You'l see it. Use your filet knife. Also trim out any shot or holes, blod clots anything that don't look right. This helps give you the best piece of meat you can get. You should end up with two very nice pieces of wild turkey white meat. Rinse in cold water and freeze. I then cut the thigh free from the drum stick, trim as above, and wash and freeze these too. Do save the drum stick bone for a future wingbone call and a very good slate striker.

All said and done this takes me about 15 minutes of my time and trouble. After all you all shot this bird...et your trophy! ;D

JW

Great photos....Well said!!!! I also breast out my birds...As far as waisting meat....I end up throwing the dark meat away, anyway...to tuff to eat ..so why waist fuel, when you are cooking!!!

I breast my birds out