Changing goals and speed

[Bruce]

I am brining my turkey too. I spatchcocked it and mashed it flat. What I read on the internet, it shouldn't take long for it to cook on the pit, 3-4 hours. Tonight I'm going to take it out of the brine and leave it in the fridge to dry the skin so it will be crunchy. At least, that is what the directions say.... And in the morning I'll put a rub on it. So we'll see. I'm looking forward to the carcass bones so I can make broth. LOL Smoked turkey.....

I had to look up "spatchcock". Looks interesting! But I don't have the kitchen "shears" nor do I have a big enough pan with a rack even for my small 13 pound turkey. Maybe next year.

 

[Baymule]

I didn't use kitchen shears. I sawed it outa there with a serrated steak knife.

 

[Mike CHS]

We do chicken on the grill like that all the time. It's quicker and tastes better than doing a whole chicken intact. We cut out the back bone piece and make a bit of broth with that and the giblets and neck.

 

[AClark]

Turkey take 2...
DH decided, against my advice I might add, to mess with the smoker Thanksgiving morning. It was slowly climbing back up after being left to cool in the early morning hours. Well, someone got a little overzealous with the wood and started a turkey fat fire. Let's just say the pigs thoroughly enjoyed all the work I put into the turkey before it caught on fire.
It looked and smelled great before that. We ended up frying Turkey 2.0 due to time constraints.

I pulled JD's stitches on Friday. It's still a mess, he developed an infection in the hole, so when I pulled the stitches, it was rather gross. Poor guy is back on antibiotics and being sprayed with blu-kote. It looks like it's going ok since it has now drained out considerably. That smell was pretty off putting. He was on antibiotics initially for 3 days, but I guess they didn't knock it out - that was Enrofloxacin. We went back to basics with Pen G as it appears to be staph infection from the signs of it.
I'm glad I thought to give him a tetanus shot after we got home that night, since we had just gotten him he hadn't gotten hit with a CDT yet. I was pretty surprised that the stitches held that infection in and I hadn't seen any oozing or anything prior to stitch removal (at 14 days). He hasn't shown any signs of infection either, eats fine, acts fine. I did debride it as well to help it drain. He's a tough little guy. I planned on taking him back to the vet this week if it wasn't clearing but it appears to be getting way better.

My ducks are starting to hatch out. I had 3 chicks hatch out over Thanksgiving; out of 5 eggs, two were developed but turned funny and never made it out.

 

[CntryBoy777]

Dealing with infection is never a pleasent thing, but sure glad ya caught it and improvement is marked. Burnt turkey is certainly not tasty....I know that had to be disappointing to say the least, but fried sure isn't bad either. I know the hatchings are exciting....I just love peepers....

 

[AClark]

It looks pretty much normal (now that the sun is up and I can see) today other than some plasma ooze from where I debrided it. Of course the poor guy is tired of me constantly poking, prodding, and sticking him with antibiotics already. I may soak the scab off when the kids get home and I can get another set of hands to hold him for me to look better, depends on whether I see any fresh purulent drainage or not. I've avoided flushing it out because I don't want to damage the healing areas that look normal, it was super deep to begin with, and I'm not keen on sticking anything even sterile in it to find out depth and risking introducing anything else to it.
JD really isn't keen on me covering his eye with my hand to spray blu-kote. The wound is so close though that's about all I can do to avoid getting it in his eye. I love my new purple hands, very stylish.

We have chicks set to hatch on the 7th and the 11th. The 11th will be Silkie eggs from show quality parents. I'm excited, they are out of blue splash colored stock so they should be really wild.

 

[AClark]

We have a quacker... and like 4-5 more that are pipped, you can see one next to quacker #1. Not sure about the rest that haven't pipped yet, I don't see movement or hear peeping. Fingers crossed they are just late to the party.

The other eggs name is "Bill". I told DH it had pipped enough I could see a beak...bill? and his smart@ss reply was "Bill? Did you just assume it's gender?" - so, regardless of gender, it's name is now Bill.

 

[CntryBoy777]

So Cute!!.....if it is a hen ya can just add an "ie" at the end of it....

 

[AClark]

Exactly, can be Billie Jean instead of "Bill. Kind of like the goose, Bo. It's Bohannon if it's a he, and Bo Derek if it's a she, lol.

 

[Bruce]

Geez, the only good thing about the turkey fiasco is that you had a second one you COULD cook. If that smoker fire crispy turkey happened here I think the options would have been frozen: pizza, ravioli, egg rolls, shrimp or tilapia. Just NOT what most want on Thanksgiving day!

Did you just assume it's gender?" - so, regardless of gender, it's name is now Bill.

My grandparents and aunt called my mother Billie. She was (obviously) not a boy so instead of naming her WIlliam, they named her Wilma. No one other than those 3 ever called her Billie.