Building a drill mounted chicken plucker....

[Chicken Fruit]

Hey this is an excellent thread. I wish someone would post a video of one of them in action- just to get an idea of how to handle the bird and the drill and work the two together.

This is awesome.

 

[TimG]

Quote:
There is a link to a video on the second page of this thread.

 

[Chicken Fruit]

Quote:
There is a link to a video on the second page of this thread.

I are lazies. Didnt bother to look for one.

THANKS!

 

[Morning Dove]

Well, it's built! We will be trying it out this weekend! I'll let you know how it goes!

Dove

 

[pdpatch]

tips:

If you use a battery powered drill use half the fingers.

If you hand hold the drill, use a reversable drill.

If you hand hold the drill most likely you will need a second person to hold the birds still.

Reversing the drill, will remove a lot of pin feathers once the regular feather have been plucked.

The direction the drill spins makes a difference in how well the feathers are removed.

Be prepared for feathers every where.

It hurts if you happen to have your fingers in the way of the pluckers fingers when spinning.

The large feathers on the a Cornish cross or Turkey, like on the wings and tail, usually don't come out when using the plucker.

It doesn't pluck unless you scald first.

Tom

 

[kingmt]

Tom

I don't seem to have those problems with mine. I can stick my fingers in my plucker while I wont say it fells good It doesn't hurt. The wing feathers come out just fine & most of the tail feathers. There is a few of the smaller ones left to hand pluck.

I will say a good scald is the most important part & it does through feather everywhere so don't do this in the kitchen.

 

[bja105]

I built a drill picker yesterday. I was disappointed. I was faster by hand. After two birds, we stopped using it. I think the ease of the drill picker is overstated, and the difficulty of hand picking is vastly overstated. Its easy!

 

[kingmt]

Please post a pic of your plucker. Also how did you scald the bird? I think the plucker is great.

Please fallow up so we may help each other to make this easier. Since you bought the pickers from me I know they work very well. If I could get some more details maybe we can figure out why yours isn't preforming to your satisfaction.

Again a picture would be great.

 

[bja105]

I'll try to get my pics up tomorrow. I used a 4" pvc cap with 6 fingers, staggered. I think I should have used pairs of fingers, instead of 6 singles.

Another part of the problem was my mounting. I had it C-clamped to my F-150 tailgate. After a bit, it would come out of the clamp. If the picking part had been working better, I would have found a better mount.


The birds were scalded in 155 degree water until wing feathers pulled easily, then into cold water, then the drill.

I even tried scalding the fingers, to soften them, with no noticeable change.

I'll need to get some more birds to try further improvements. Hopefully, I'll have some Canada Geese in September.

 

[kingmt]

The manufacture told me these will not work on ducks so I don't know if it will work on Geese. I only use a 2" with 4 fingers & i think they may be a little far apart so you might be getting to much bouncing. I have never tried to mount the drill ether. Mainly because it just doesn't look like something I would trust. I am think of modifying the pickers & mounting it to a drill press to see if I can get it to work on ducks. Also I have more luck with the bird still hot. After it cools down they don't pluck as quick. I'm not sure on heating the fingers but I would think they would be better cold. The harder pluckers I buy are the ones they told me work the best.