anyone use a poultry plucker to process their birds?

[rhoda_bruce]

Well thats close to a years amount of chicken meat. Did you make the plucker yourself or did you buy one?

 

[TimG]

Kaj, are you eating your New Hampshires? If so, I wonder how old and how big they are when you process.

Where did you purchase the tabletop plucker and about how much did it cost? (If you don't mind sharing.)

 

[quercus21]

Rhoda_Bruce
Well thats close to a years amount of chicken meat. Did you make the plucker yourself or did you buy one?
I purchased it from Mcmurray hatchery.

Tim_G
Kaj, are you eating your New Hampshires? If so, I wonder how old and how big they are when you process.

Where did you purchase the tabletop plucker and about how much did it cost? (If you don't mind sharing.)

Our NHR are for eggs and "pets". I raise the cornish x for meat.
The picker was about 350.00. Was it worth it, to me yep. One less thing for me to have to make.

Kaj

 

[cherylellen]

My son and I built the whiz bang chicken plucker with the instructions from Herrick Kimbal's (Deliberate Agrarian) website. We absolutely love it. We also built a six cone killing area, scalding equipment, and set up a utility sink with two countertop spaces in my barn. We process up to 50 chickens at a time with a very efficient system. I'm enjoying my freezer full of chicken right now!

We pluck 3 large chickens at a time in the plucker, we've also done large turkeys (one at a time) and it works wonderfully!

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Awesome!!! I was thinking on getting the booklet from McMurrays on how to build one. It looks a lot easier to make a plucker than an incubator. I have a huge concreted area under my house that my husband wants to convert slowly into an outdoor kitchen for exactly this type of thing. Even if I have to smell scalded chicken, 50 at one time would be a God send. I don't mind a little hard work, but there is only so much of me to go around, and if I can make my life easier with something like this, wonderful.

 

[todd walker]

I bought this one 4-5 years ago,use it to clean the ducks(hunted) and phesants,I pick them dry there is a learning curve to using it as long as you do not use too much pressure holding the bird into the fingers it will not tear them up.

 

[rhoda_bruce]

Now that is wonderful. I really don't miss the smell of scalded chickens one bit. I can try anyway. If I rip a bird, I can stop. Or I can attempt it in a different position. I mean, sometimes I rip skin with my fingers. I have begun calling my duck hunting relatives to find out if anyone in my area has a plucker, but so far no one does. I would really love to see one in operation and speak, first hand to someone that is experienced with the operation of one, but this thread has answered some of the questions I would have had anyway. I would say that in all likelyhood, I will obtain a plucker, either by making one or buying one. Even if I buy one, I will make it worth the investment. But I am more thinking on exploring just getting the parts and putting one together here. I mean......50 birds in one shot. You know how long that would take me and how much my feet and back would hurt; not to mention how disgusted I would be after that much unpleasant business.
Not that I have a huge chicken operation, but I have been supplying my own chicken meat for a few months now and I think that very soon I will be chicken meat independant, so I feel that a plucker would be a valueable asset.

 

[kcfuerst]

Why not skin them instead?

Excellent video

 

[rhoda_bruce]

I agree that would be healthier and I have skinned a few chickens, especially if I didn't care for the color of their skin or if there were too many pin feathers. I like the taste of the skin, provided it is well cooked, with most of the grease cooked out. Even if I would skin the breast for healthy cooking, I probably would want the skin on the wings for BBQs and baking (my favorite part). But there is no way I would skin a duck....especially a wild duck.

 

[Chickiemama1010]

not something I have personal experience with (yet) but I have heard the smell of scalded birds is TERRIBLE and its time consuming to hand pluck too. But heres something I saw long ago on here, and thought if it works for my eyebrows, why not for a chicken too? Wax them....no joke!


https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=6962-Waxing_chickens