Skinning A Turtle

Both my husband and I having grown up in the country have eaten many kinds of meat other than the traditional beef/pork/chicken purchased at your local corner grocer. My own grandfather trapped to supplement his income and O Wise One's grandfather trapped also. Many of the ways of trapping and skinning were passed down to O Wise One from his grandfather. As for myself having grown up literally on the banks of a river in southeast Louisiana much of our meat came from the rivers, bayous and swamps surrounding us. Crabs, shrimp, crayfish, frogs, turtles, fish and rabbits were just part of the local fare. 

Recently after mentioning in a post about butchering turtles several of you expressed interest so I decided to do some posts on turtles including butchering, preparing the meat and canning and then a post on cooking it.  To start this string of posts I am going to post how to kill and butcher them. For those of you that are squeamish DO NOT READ this post past this point!  

First problem is finding your turtles. We butcher snapping turtles. Not sliders or stink pots but snappers. Back home in Louisiana some call them "cooter" turtles. Be careful handling these babies because they don't call them snappers for nothing! Snappers are usually found near water and many times neighbors will bring us one that was caught on their hook while fishing the local farm ponds and rivers. In the spring many times you can find them crossing the back roads during mating season. Safest way to pick them up is by the tail!! Common snapping turtles are not endangered however their cousin the alligator snapper is rare but are not found this far north.  

Always check with your local wildlife conservation department for laws on harvesting turtles in your area. In Missouri you must have a valid fishing license to possess turtles. A daily limit is 5 and possession limit is 5. 

We are picky about where our turtles come from. You do not want a turtle out of someone's sewage lagoon. Most of our turtles come from farm ponds or rivers.  

Once we have a turtle they go into an old watering tank set out under a shade tree by the garden. We want to keep them in there for about 6 to 8 weeks. We do this to flush the mud and impurities out of them that can collect in their shells and constantly add clean water as it evaporates and we even change the water regularly so that they always are in really clean water. During this time we also feed them. My husband saves fat, skin, gizzards, hearts and such from butchering chickens, fish and rabbits. This can be frozen for future turtle food. When fed regularly this helps to fatten them up for butchering also. When you skin those summer fish the entrails and such feed the turtles. By the end of summer they are ready to butcher. 

You will need the following tools. Long handles pliers(water pump pliers), large nails, fish skinning pliers, fillet knife and a heavy hunting type knife. This particular one is a military knife and it needs to be heavy duty. A hammer and a board about 2 to 3 foot long. Water is also helpful to wash away blood.

 To kill the turtle you are going to tap the front of the shell and get your turtle to open it's mouth. Grab the top lip with your pliers and pull the head to extend it and quickly cut the head off with your heavy knife. Make sure your knives are sharp before you begin. Now let your turtle bleed out. Sometimes it helps to hang the turtle upside down so that the blood drains quicker. 

Your turtles muscles will still continue to move so this requires some wrestling but grab those feet and extend them and you want to cut them off at the first knuckle right behind the claw. It is nothing but gristle right there and you should be able to cut it with a good fillet knife.  

Now take that good sharp fillet knife and run it between the top and bottom shell between the two legs. There is a little groove right there on the side. Your knife should go right in that groove. 

Now run that sharp fillet knife around the shell cutting the skin away from the top shell. 

Once cut away from the shell you will have to take your heavy military knife and tap it with a hammer through the bony neck to release the top portion of the shell. It will still be connected at the tail. 

Lift that top shell at the neck.

Hold the bottom and twist the top shell separating it at the tail. 

Now you want to clean off all entrails leaving nothing but meat and tendons. When you clean the entrails out the neck will come out also. Save this because this piece is the best piece of meat according to my husband. This is one of the few white portions of meat on the turtle other than the back strap.  

Now take one of your large nails and nail it through the middle of your turtle through the bottom plate of the shell or skid plate to your board to hold it down.

Run your filet knife just under the leg skin of all 4 legs and split the skin.

With your fillet knife skinning out that front leg meat by simply running your knife between the meat and the skin all the way around leg. You cut it loose in one place where it attaches to the shell. 

Then remove the entire leg bone and all. 

Your front leg meat should look like this. 

Now repeat the process on the rear legs. The rear legs will come out attached as one piece. Simply take your heavy knife and tapping it between the two legs to break them apart where the tail once was. This separates each leg. 

This will give you 4 legs and a neck piece. 

You are almost finished. Now for that back strap which is probably the best piece of the turtle. Take the upper shell And place your heavy knife right beside the backbone and tap with hammer breaking through ribs. Now go to the other side of the rib and repeat. 

Now run your fillet knife underneath this strip and lift. You should get a strip of pure meat. Remove the strip on the other side of the backbone the same way.  

Now trim the small rib pieces off your back strap and you are done. 

We then soak our meat overnight in salt water to clean and help draw out the blood.  An average turtle will yield about  2 pounds of meat. Twenty years ago my husband used to sell turtle meat around the New Orleans area. It averaged then about $16 a pound. Turtle meat does not taste like chicken and is a darker and richer meat almost similar to a veal. 

From there your meat can be canned or frozen for future use. Next I will post how to can the meat. 

Blessings from The Holler

The Canned Quilter