When to process white broad breasted turkeys?

[NurseNettie]

We bought some 3 week old bb turkeys about a month back. I had been planning on getting turkeys for processing at one point or other, but this was a last minute decisions- and I hadn't been thinking about timelines when we got them ( these were unclaimed/unbought turkeys from a feed store order-- we got a call - they were trying to sell them before closing for the weekend).
At what age ( or age range) should they be processed? I'm not overly concerned that they are as big as they can get-- we're looking for a decent age to process. I guess the question is-- what is the earliest and latest ages for optimal processing-- and why?
Would appreciate any input.

Forgive me if I'm not making a lot of sense-- I'm running on lack of sleep

 

[toddntiff]

I'm not the most experienced backyard chicken person, but we have done the chicken thing for over a year and in February we got 4 white breasted turkeys that were about 2 weeks old. We butchered 2 of them last Saturday and the each weighed in around 60lbs live weight. That's ALOT of bird!
Our feed store told us that if we let them go all the way until Thanksgiving they would quite possibly not fit in the oven because they would be so large so we plan to butcher the other two in a month and then save them for Thanksgiving.
I hope this helps!

 

[pdpatch]

Generally BB Turkey's are butchered at around 18 to 22 weeks of age.

But that could get a hen around 16 to 17 dressed and a tom around 22 to 25 pounds.

We had a really mean BB Bronze hen and did here at about 12 weeks, It was just about 9 pounds dressed.

Tom

 

[NurseNettie]

Great! I was thinking I'd have to keep them around til next summer to butcher--- but now I can get them done before the super cold weather sets in!!! And if we have a couple that we want to grow a bit bigger, we can do that too. Thanks!

Edited to add::: we have 13 of them!! And just 2 of us humans to feed, so regardless of their age, we've got a LOT of meat to be putting in the freezer

We love ground turkey in a lot of meals that would usually use hamburger, so the majority of it will be ground meat ( easier to process--- no plucking!) and save a few for holiday or Sunday dinner roasting!! Yum!

 

[Poupoulles]

We have a couple too many in our flock and some of them are a serious pain so this weekend I plan on slaughtering a few. We also love ground turkey. What I am trying to figure out is what to grind, what to keep (part wise)
What do you do?

 

[NurseNettie]

I plan to grind anything I'd normally eat off of a roast turkey. We aren't organ meat eaters- so those will be excluded ( but kept with the carcass for stock making, of course!)
We've got a great old meat grinder, and a huge freezer-- so we'll be all set!

Quote:

 

[toddntiff]

So here's another bit of advice for the grinding part...since you are skinning and not plucking there won't be any fat on the birds which will create VERY lean meat and when you actually cook it it could be dried out. We ground it with some bacon (not turkey bacon) to add some fat to it to help it stick together and give it some thickness when we cook it. It seemed to work so much better and tasted much better with the bacon!

 

[NurseNettie]

Great idea!! Thanks!

Quote:

 

[Poupoulles]

Quote:
yuuuum!!!

 

[chickenannie]

Quote:
60 lbs each?

Were their legs still holding them up??? I just don't see how that is possible~! Nor, how you could get a 60-lb bird in anyone's oven!