A practical 'Dispatch, Plucking & Dressing' course

Come and learn the essential skills required to prepare your own Christmas Turkey.

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If you're dreaming of a home produced Christmas dinner this year, let us help you produce the most fabulous centrepiece!​

This course will give you the essential skills required to prepare your homegrown turkey for the table.

Catriona & Jonathan have been rearing, preparing and selling award winning Christmas turkeys since 2011.  We are both veterinary surgeons, and also hold the required WATOK (*) license.  We can take you comfortably through the whole process.

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On the day, you will prepare a free range turkey from start to finish (with as much assistance as needed)  

These birds have been reared free range here on our smallholding, and are part of our Christmas flock.

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We will teach you how to humanely dispatch a turkey, looking at different methods available, and how to ensure welfare is maintained throughout (mechanical neck dislocation and electrical stunning will be demonstrated)

Plenty of discussion and demonstration will take place, to ensure you are confident with what you are about to do.

Once you are comfortable with the process, you can then carry out this stage yourself.

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You will then be taught how to dry pluck your turkey, and learn about hanging or resting to mature the meat.

​After lunch, we will move on to the dressing stage - again, each participant will be closely supervised to ensure that you fully understand the procedure.

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During the day, we will also spend time looking at the whole rearing process -  from day old poult to adult turkey - brooder set up, feeding, housing, and equipment required.  Lots of tips and tricks! We have been running a successful Christmas Turkey business here for over 12 years, and can talk you through the requirements if you are considering doing this yourself.

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At the end of the day, you will take your oven ready turkey home to enjoy.  You will leave equipped with the skills and confidence to go on and process your own birds.

(Your turkey will be one of our free range, bronze birds, from our award winning flock reared for the Christmas market. Oven ready weight between 4-5kg. We will send you home with full storage and cooking instructions. Your turkey can be frozen, and kept for Christmas, or Easter - it will taste just as amazing after up to 6 months in the freezer)

What else is Included?

A homecooked lunch, including some of the delicious produce straight from our smallholding.   There will also be plenty of tea/coffee and

homebaking.

The course includes a comprehensive book, covering all of the information taught during the day.

Videos of the techniques taught on the course will also be set to you following the event, to allow you to refresh your memory when you are preparing to process your own birds at home.

This course will have a maximum 6 participants, to ensure that you have plenty of supervision.

* WATOK = Welfare At Time Of Killing.  This legislation will be discussed during the course. Parts of it apply to anyone dispatching poultry at home. If you intend to sell poultry meat, you will always require a WATOK license. We cannot issue these, but this course is a useful first step towards gaining your WATOK license)