Our First Thanksgiving Turkey

These are our first turkeys.  We have raised them from just a few days old and now it is time to prepare them for dinner.  The larger male is named Christmas and his smaller mate is Thanksgiving.  We made the biggest mistake of all..... we made pets of them!  Nick and Matthew have really become attached to them. 

Thanksgiving Day is this week and today is the day... the end of the line... for our female.

The male turkey met his maker two weeks ago after a few hesitations by Nick.  He weighed 30 pounds prior to dressing, and produced 22 pounds of meat plus several jars of stock. 

Our Thanksgiving girl will be going onto Thursday's dinner table.

We finally decided that since we bought and raised them as food, we needed to stay firm in the decision.

Next year however, the turkeys will not become pets.

We also raised 24 meat chickens which we had no trouble at all when it came time butcher them. 

Next year our plan is to double the number of meat chickens for the freezer; and two more turkeys.