I was pulling out my turkey to brine it and I noticed that it has a couple dozen or so black spots scattered about on it. There is a cluster of about 8 of them where the tip of the wing presses against the breast. The rest are scattered in different areas. They don’t brush off. This is a fresh bird from the grocery store. Any idea of what they are? Is it a feather remnant or something else?
How big are the spots? Do they look like bruises, or more like blackheads?
A tattoo? I ain’t never seen a bunch of black spots on a turkey, and to be frank it didn’t sound so good.
Then I saw a link with a quote from this Wash. Post article of 11/12/97 (the rest of the article you had to pay for), stating “when dark-plumed turkeys are processed, pigment from their feathers extrudes into the skin, turning the flesh…”
Maybe that’s the answer.
The thread title sounds like non-traditional haiku.
Bubonic plague?
They’re small dots. Like big blackheads. It doesn’t seem like pigmentation from the feathers. I uploaded a pic here: http://tinypic.com/view.php?pic=t6x8ae&s=5
Looks sort of like pin feathers to me. If you grip the top can you pull them out?
It looks like a feather remnant, which is nothing to worry about. Try popping the spots like a blackhead and see if that removes some of the pigment.
I think you might be right about the pin feathers. I can sort of pull them out. They’re pretty soft and they’re hard to get ahold of since they are flush with the skin. But they do appear to be in the “pore” of where a feather would have been.
Here’s a pic of pin feathers on a duck: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2283/2154763631_407efd44a7_o.jpg. They seem to have more of the feather above the skin. Some of the dots on my turkey do go beneath the skin like you see in that photo.
I hope that’s what it is. I guess I’ll go ahead and cook the turkey and see what happens. If nothing else, I guess we’ll order Chinese.
Fa Ra Ra Ra Ra, Ra Ra Ra Ra 
There’s nothing wrong with the turkey, as you will see when you take him out of the oven.