Wild Turkey

How do you clean a wild turkey?

I've gotten into turkey hunting the last couple of seasons. I've killed one bird and my hunting buddy cut out the breast and I cut out the legs. The next one I kill I want to clean the whole bird. Does anyone know the steps, or where it is posted online, that tells me how to clean a whole bird?

The procedure is simple but takes a bit of time. The easiest way is to skin the whole bird after gutting it. However, this is not the best way to treat a bird for cooking. For the best flavor, you need to leave the skin on. The steps for cleaning the bird and leaving the skin on is as follows:

1. Remove the head.
2. Make an incision about 4 inches long in the birds underside just in front of his tail.
3. Pull out the guts but reserve the crop (gizzard), the heart and the liver. The rest goes into the gut pile.
4. Heat a bucket of water to boiling. Hold the bird by its feet and plunge it into the boiling water for a few seconds. This loosens the feathers and enables you to remove them.
5. Pull off the feathers. This is the hard part and may require re-dipping the bird to loosen all the feathers.
6. Once you have the feathers off, you will still have a few small feathers left on the bird. these can be singes off by holding the bird over the burner of a gas stove. Keep the bird moving over the flame. You only want to singe off the tiny feathers not cook the bird.
7. Thoroughly wash the bird inside and out with fresh cold water.
8. Remove the feet and either cook the bird or freeze it for later.

Hope this helps.