shooting my home raised turkey

My theory on deer is that if you don't hit them in a way that shocks/breaks their spine, but you still make a very good shot, they will die in 5 seconds.  So will a human.  The difference is that we flop around on the ground and complain about it (I assume).  Their only response is to run like hell no matter what.  So in 5 seconds they cover a lot of ground even though they're in the act of dying.

My first deer was a perfect 60 yard shot in the heart.  It ran 100+ yards and due to no pumping heart, left no trail (drop every 5 feet on fall leaves).  My uncle was a great hunter and tracked it and we found it.  

Birds could be a different matter, they do tend to flop for more than 5 seconds even with their head removed.

Zombifying this post after my experience today with 10 turkeys (dressed 15-22 pounds).

I was behind on preparations for today and didn't do my homework. Looking at the size of the birds, I wasn't sure my scalpel would do the job humanely and looked for alternate methods. I was also concerned that my cones weren't large enough.

I used an empty feedbag with a hole cut in the bottom (not across the seam) to 'hold' the bird. Once in the bag, they were generally calm. After letting them rest in the bag for 10-15 minutes, I then used .22 target pistol (it's what I had handy) with a contact shot downward through the top of the head (roughly between the ears and eyes). There was some convulsing and flapping but generally it stopped quickly within 20 seconds. With a second pair of hands controlling the bird, I was able to grab the head and cut the carotid with my scalpel (my normal method for chickens) and bleed it out. Most times it worked well enough. A few didn't bleed out sufficiently and it showed in the finished products (bruises, internal clots).

Plan for the next time: Get a high-quality, extremely sharp hatchet and take the head off with the bird in a cone. My alternate for oversized birds that don't sit nicely in a cone is a 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the center.