News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1888-01-05
BIG TURKEY F0UNDRIES.
ONE OF THE CHIEF LIVE STOCK
PRODUCTS OF INDIANA.
Mammoth Coops Containing 600
Turkeys - Preparing the Birds
for PiCkers' Jokes

Turkeys - preparing the Birds
for Market Pickers' Jokes.
have just visited turkey foun-
dry'' here, says a Newcastle Qnd.) letter
to the Lewiston (Me.) Journal Hogs
and turkeys are the principal live stock
products of the Hog and Hominy"
State, and as a matter of course this is
the season of the harvesting of the latter
crop. Neither swine nor fowls are
either housed or fattened: neither receiv-
ing any care, but run at large from the
time they are first introduced to the
world until they are prepared for the
market. In consequence your Western
bird cannot compete with its New Eng
land cousin, raised with all due care and
carefully fattened for the market.
Turkey Foundres" are scattered over
the entire State. Six double mule teams
collect turkeys from within a radius of
ten miles and bring them to this foundry
daily. No Hoosier farmer thinks of
dressing his own birds for the market,
but sells them on the hoof to the collec-
tors, receiving six cents per pound for
his fock. The foundry, building 58x
80 feet, without floor, in fact mann
moth coop, holding 1900 turkeys, is
kept well filled by these teams. AT one
end is a smaller building, the dressing
room, about 20x10 where the men, wad-
ing almost knee-deep in feathers, pick
turkeys at five cents each, from morping
until night. Each man dressed on
the average five an hour, or fifty
an hour for the crew. Necks are
wrung for Boston, while throats are
stuck for the New York market. They
were dressing a la New York to-day,
when visited by your correspondent.
Entering the dressing room, attracted
by tremendous gobbling from the
turks, there appeared ten meil, each with
a bird suspended by the feet by cord
from beam overhead, pulling feathers
for dear life. Beside each man stood
two barrels, one for large tail feathers
and the broad, flat wing feathers that
grow on the bend of the wing next to
the body. This grade sells for feather
busters. The second barrel received all
soft body feathers, sold for many pur-
poses. As l entered one picker finished
his bird and came and sat beside me- In
answer to inquiry as to how long it re-
quired to dress bird, he said: "We
are on the last of pen full now; just
fun"
Meanwhile fifty turkeys, large and small,
bad been put into "the cage" a pen
about eight feet square; but no picker,
even though he had finished his last bird
of the previous lot, might select one
from this and go to work, each as he
finished must wait for the last Later
developments showed the justice of this.
Conversation among the pickers while
waiting the last man turned on the num-
Der of good, fat, easy-picking hens
among the new lot in the cage, and one
old twenty five pound "bull, whom no.
body wanted. The moment the last
man finished and hung up his bird all
made grand rush for the pen, and in
returned, each carrying a large
turkey by the feet. Arriving at his
each slipps both feet of his
catch through a moose in the cord and
brings the bird down with force, then
graspS a sharp-pointed knife and runs
through the neck, just back of the bill,
cutting all the arteries. Then the wres-
tie with feathers begin.
One sweep of the hand takes every tail
feather into the barrel. Two grabs docs
the same for the broad feathers of the
wings. With one downward sweep a
space as large as the picker's hand is laid
bare from tail to neck. This is kept up
until the body is thoroughly picked.
Then the finger is run into the rent,
hooked around the larger intestine, and
the bird is drawn. Not knife is used
n the whole operation except in killing
the bird. The feet are now freed from
the moose, the head laid on block and
chopped off, the skin of the neck drawn
back about an inch and chopped off again,
letting the skin of the neck cover over
the end where it is tied, and your bird is
ready for market. Do you wonder that
,hey sometimes acquire far away taste
served up at the East?
One picker, from the time he stuck his
bird until he hung him up finished, oc-
;upied Just seven and one-half minutes,
mother nine and one-Quarter minutes.
Finally one said he would tackle the
twenty-five pound bull" did 80, and
finished him in just eight minutes and
,wenty seconds.
/ walked into the pen to see them
caught. In-would come picker, cast
critical eye over the lot in search of an
,asy one, walk along, and with a never
ailing swoop of the hand, grab turkey
~ the thigh, then hold him up and blow
he feathers away from the under side of
he wing and rump. II no pin feathers,
}. X. if any, drop him and grab an
'ther, till satisfactory one was foundI
the last ones of a lot of fifty
re very hard to pick, and as each man fin
shes his last of the lot he is required to-
vait until all are done, thus giving each
fair chance to begin on the easy ones.
As in everything else, the amateur is
he butt for all jokes. One of the pickers
ound an extra tough, pin feathery bird,
nd hid him under barrel. In comes
1r. Novice, hears this bird, and conceives
he idea that some comrade has found a
ice bird and hid him for his next. Out
e comes in great glte, hangs uphis prize,
nd amid the smiles of his fellow pickers
roceeds to pick bird that is "pinny"
rom head to toe. Finally, one of the
ickers leaves his bird to speak to an out
Ider at the door; his comrades improve
his opportunity to detach his half
ressed turkey, and throw it into hogs
cad half full of feathers. When he re-
Irns and is sounding for it they quietly
# his feet from under him and plunge
i'm headforemost after the turk.