I had a friend come help me butcher and pluck this past Friday and I now understand why meat duck experts say to butcher at 7 weeks. The one I did last week was 7 weeks old and took me about 75 minutes to pluck. We each started an 8 week old bird on Friday and two hours later we said, "screw it, this will have to do". Once the feathers were off they looked like hedgehogs with row after row of closely spaced pin feathers poking through their skin that had to be pulled pretty much one at a time. Then there was still the down to deal with. The third duck we simply skinned, as you suggested. I have three more to do. If at week 9 they are still as hard as at week 8 we are going to skin at least one and then smoke the other two. I figure since we always remove the skin after we smoke chickens and turkeys it won't matter if we do a perfect plucking job.
I love duck. We've served roast duck (or once or twice goose) for every Christmas dinner for something like 10 years. If I'm at a good restaurant and there is duck on the menu I almost always order it. It is a fattier meat than chicken but rich and flavorful. I'm thinking smoked might be awesome because sometimes chicken and turkey get sort of dry in the smoker, but with the extra layer of fat under a duck's skin, it should stay nice and moist and juicy. I'll report back if you like.
