Friday, November 27, 2015

Forensic Turkey Files

This post is a bit of a downer. So if you are having a lovely day, you might want to skip this one. 


I try to buy nice, small, free range turkeys most years. This year I was a bit late on my planning and my grocery delivery service brought me a butterball because they were all out of nice turkeys. I was ahead of the game last night and made my turkey stock while I did dishes. I dug through the bones and veggies trying to find the wishbone. I found it, but it was broken. I didn't remember mashing the carcass badly enough to break it in the pot.


I looked closer and could see that I did not inflict the abuse. This turkey had had a bad life. The turkey's collar bone had been broken and badly healed, judging by the reddened and lumpy bone that over-lapped oddly. 

I inspected a few more bones and found a vertebrae with one of the vertebral arches pulverized. I don't know if this happened during the turkeys final days, processing, or if it is the mark of some sort of disease. I looked at some other vertebrae and the broken one did look a little darker, so I'm guessing that points to a antemortem trauma.  

These findings made me very sad. I hate factory farms. Take care of your animals, even if you are going to slaughter them later. I think I might want to bring back my short-lived vegetarianism. 

2 comments:

  1. So sad that this poor bird had a painful life! We are seriously on the same wavelength here. I haven't been able to eat meat again since cooking my Trader Joe's turkey. I imagined cooking a whole pig or a whole cow like that and almost got sick. I ate mushrooms instead since I couldn't stomach turkey. Nom! No soy this time though. I think that's what made my body all whack after all those year of veg.

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  2. Poor baby. Thanksgiving is really messed up to begin with though. But it can still definitely be tasty without the turkey!

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