Calling on Plucker and Scalder Owners

[blueberry1]

What brand of plucker and scalder do you own? We borrow some Featherman equipment that works excellent but is a bit out of our price range at the moment. I’d like to hear what other brands people are using.

We do 100+ birds a year so we need to be efficient and have reliable equipment.

 

[iwltfum]

What brand of plucker and scalder do you own? We borrow some Featherman equipment that works excellent but is a bit out of our price range at the moment. I’d like to hear what other brands people are using.

We do 100+ birds a year so we need to be efficient and have reliable equipment.

For what it's worth, The Featherman pro is by the far the best plucker I've used. I've rented them before and I've used off brands, but when I needed to purchase one, I went with the featherman. It also coincidently came with one of the best homesteading books I've ever read called Simply the Greatest Life by the creator of featherman equip David Schafer, who is a frequent contributor to the APPPA message boards. We have been raising 250 birds a year, next year we are going to 500 and we also raise about 40 turkeys every fall. I would say it's a little over sized for our operation, but the quality and customer service you get with featherman is unrivaled.

I've also used some cheaper pluckers, that are always much smaller (one bird at a time and definitely no turkeys - where I can easily do three broilers at a time in the featherman). They work fine as far as I've seen. I would say they all had enough power to get the job done, but cleaning is more difficult in the smaller sheet metal ones and they are heavy as a lead weight for some reason. And, as I already mentioned, you can work more efficiently and quickly with a larger tub and it's easier to reach your hand up under the plate to clean out clumps of feathers.

 

[blueberry1]

For what it's worth, The Featherman pro is by the far the best plucker I've used. I've rented them before and I've used off brands, but when I needed to purchase one, I went with the featherman. It also coincidently came with one of the best homesteading books I've ever read called Simply the Greatest Life by the creator of featherman equip David Schafer, who is a frequent contributor to the APPPA message boards. We have been raising 250 birds a year, next year we are going to 500 and we also raise about 40 turkeys every fall. I would say it's a little over sized for our operation, but the quality and customer service you get with featherman is unrivaled.

I've also used some cheaper pluckers, that are always much smaller (one bird at a time and definitely no turkeys - where I can easily do three broilers at a time in the featherman). They work fine as far as I've seen. I would say they all had enough power to get the job done, but cleaning is more difficult in the smaller sheet metal ones and they are heavy as a lead weight for some reason. And, as I already mentioned, you can work more efficiently and quickly with a larger tub and it's easier to reach your hand up under the plate to clean out clumps of feathers.

Thanks a ton for the detailed information. I’m thinking Featherman is the way to go. I may research renting the unit out to help pay for itself. Mind me asking what you paid to rent the Featherman in your area?

 

[iwltfum]

Thanks a ton for the detailed information. I’m thinking Featherman is the way to go. I may research renting the unit out to help pay for itself. Mind me asking what you paid to rent the Featherman in your area?

I believe it was around $50/day with a $100-$200 deposit. On the featherman website listings, it looks like they are running between $30-$100/day depending on location so it might be worth it, might not. It seems like farmers cooperatives might be a good place to check if you have one in your area.

 

[De Bauer]

Older Featherman is what we used and not sure brand of scalder but it had propane elec t-stat and a dunk crane.. Works great.. Did 60 large CX in 4.5 hours and we were a bit disorganized at the start which slowed us down. Two people.

The killing cone carousel with stand was also way better than hooking to a board or saw horse.. Load up 6 chickens. Spin the top as you load then squat knee or sit and slit neck and rotate to the next one. No moving or changing position.. The base catches all the blood for disposal later.