Slow and Low, That is the Tempo.

Because of the extreme delicious mass of the turducken, it must be cooked slowly at a low temperature so that everything inside is fully cooked while the outside won't become a diamond in a thousand years. It is a good idea to budget 10 -12 hours if you are cooking at 200 degrees. You should definitely not exceed 250 degrees. I got up at 5 a.m, took the beast out of the cooler, and massaged the skin with a butter/mayo mixture and sprinkled it with sage, thyme, oregano, and pepper. NO SALT!

Place a large cake tin upside down in your giant roasting pan so that the turducken sits on it and is elevated above the bottom of the roasting pan. This allows the fat to run off the bird while it cooks and collect in the bottom of the pan so that the bird doesn't go soggy in it's own fat.

Throw the whole thing in the oven (no lid) at 2oo degrees and go back to bed. When you eventually drag yourself out of bed and drug yourself with enough caffeine to feel human, resist the urge to open the oven. If you do so you will loose precious heat. Instead, pour yourself another coffee and go open your Christmas presents and bask in the love of your family and friends.

At around noon, grab your tin foil and a meat thermometer, and open the oven. Hopefully, your turducken will look like this...
The skin should be browned nicely, but we don't want it to burn and there is still a whole lotta cooking to still happen. Using the tinfoil, make your bird a protective breastplate and some shinguards to wrap around the drumsticks. This should keep the tasty, crispy skin from burning.

Plunge the meat thermometer deep into the bird just like the adrenaline needle scene in "Pulp Fiction". Now it is time for some independent, critical thought. Don't freak out, keep your wits about you, maybe you should get another cup of coffee. Your turducken has been in the oven for 7 hours already. Check the internal temperature on the meat thermometer. 165 degrees is our magic number where all salmonella beasties die a tragic death. We must get the bird to that internal temperature or else Grandma is making a special visit to the hospital and your family will be mocking you at every family holiday feast for years to come. You have another 3 - 4 hours to go. The big question that only you can answer is this...

Do you need to turn up the oven?

At this point I decided to go from 200 degrees to 225 degrees. As soon as you make your decision and have the tinfoil armour in place, close the oven as quickly as possible and don't open it until you absolutely have to. When the magic time comes to pull your finished culinary masterpiece out of the oven, make sure that you cover it with tinfoil (or the lid to your roaster) and let it rest for a 1/2 hour before you carve so that all your tasty turducken juices can sink back into the meat.