Oops forgot to say Happy Thanksgiving to all in the US.

Sorry to hear about your daughter :-(

I second cynic's advice. Check the neck and the cavity thoroughly- if it seems like its still a little frozen, run some water in there to make sure they aren't cemented on with ice. If there's still nothing, they just didn't put them in.

Thanks Cynic - I did do a what I thought was a thorough Cavity Search, but I guess I'll go over it again. Would hate to still have it in there.

Could they have put it under the skin of the Turkey? There is skin from the breast area all int to cavity and it is a continous stretch no breaks though and I didn't feel any thing soft.

Just hope it wasn't packaged in plastic if i end up finding it later.

Thanks to you too Jessica, I must have been typing while you posted. I did hack some ice out of there and rinsed the area along with the rest. Sure hope I don't find it while carving. My dh won't eat it then. Such a picky guy. I can feel bones all around the inside and nothing but some skin and fat by the neck/ opening.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well there aren't too many places to hide:) Usually I find the giblets inside the neck cavity. They are in a sorta paper type bag.

As for DH don't say a word to him and carve the bird yourself. For sure they are not under the skin or anywhere else that will show up in the carving if you can't find them now!

Good luck !

I found the giblets in a bag stuffed in the neck cavity. In the body cavity, the neck was in the back, and in the front was a plastic bag of turkey gravy. When did they start doing that?

I took off the plastic leg gripper. Was I supposed to leave that in? Left the pop-out button in, and when I basted after three hours, I filled the body cavity with the juice instead of just running it over the breast. I figure it will steam up into the breast from there.

Bought a 21 pound bird 7 days ago, been defrosting in fridge since then, 7.5 days and still frozen inside. So adding another hour at least, from 400-350-350-400 original 4-hour plan to 400-350-350-365-400 5-hour plan, maybe longer.

Thanks Chase and Happyday.

I finally found them in the neck cavity, but that hole was well hidden and really hard to find and nothing sticking out. All in all the Turkey turned out good and the meat was really moist, so besides spending lots of time trying to find the hidden stuff the rest seemed like breeze.

Hope everybody else had a good day too.

I grew up on a turkey farm and we always had fresh turkey.

Fast forward to being a newlywed and buying my first turkey from the store. Yep, you guessed it. I didn't even know they put stuff in a bag inside the turkey! I found it when I was carving the bird!

Oh well, it didn't change the taste. lol

Betty

I'm glad there was a happy ending to the story. Gobble, gobble!

Happy ending yes......but not for the turkey!!

Stacie

My brother cooked the bird for the first time this year. He found the bag of giblets as he carved. It must happen to a lot of people!

Interesting it happens to so many people missing it. Since the bird comes with instructions already included you'd think the could just add where to find these things other than just saying to remove them.

Oh I did remove the leg thingy too, could get in to see enough to make sure I got everything out with it there. I think it would have helped keeping it as the legs fell off to the sides and that would likely have prevented it.

Check under the flap where the turkey goes over the fence last (as my Mother would say - she was raised on a farm). In other words under the flap of skin in the small rear cavity (in the butt).

My turkey this year had no neck or giblets. Fortunately at the inlaw's Christmas Eve dinner we had a turkey as well and I got to bring home the carcass to make stock for our gravy.

In our family, the part of the turkey that goes over the fence last was called The Pope's Nose. I forget the story telling why.