Chicken pluckers - please excuse my ignorance

[Whitehouse Quail]

We used one of these yesterday to process our county fair's birds.... really, all that happened was a few broken wings (Like, three out of 200 birds), and a couple cornish (Grotesquely undereight, like 8 oz birds) had parts of skin ripped off. Other than that, grocery store chickens! Worked very well for turkeys, too. I would definitely reccomend it, the time saved is worth the few cosmetic blemishes that occasionaly happen.

Just my 0.02!

 

[FarmerRob]

Quote:
Agree. The only way this is done for $20.00 is if you already had almost all the parts. The plastic barrel is more than that around here and the 2x4's for the frame would be nearly that much. He states in the comments that he already had the motor, etc.

If you decide you want to buy rather than build a plucker these start at $595: http://ezpluckers.com

Herrick Kimball's Whizbang DIY model is a good one and he offers a partial parts package on some of the harder to find components (or at least he used to--I haven't check lately but his website is: http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com

You can avoid much of the skin tearing issue by not scalding at too hot a temperature or for too long. You will need a thermometer in the water to be sure that you maintain the correct temp as you go. Most people, self included, recommend 145 to 150 degrees. Opinions will vary a bit but this range works well. Dunk the birds for about three seconds and give it a little up and down motion each time to get the water penetrating to the base of the feathers. Each time you take the bird back out give a tug on one of the large wing or tail feathers. When one slides out with no resistance you have properly scalded the bird and are ready to pluck--by hand or machine.

The biggest reason you will find broken bones (barring rough handling by you,) is if your birds are Cornish Cross. They tend to outgrow their own bone growth. So their bones are often too weak and brittle for their freakish weight gain. If you have ever purchased a bag of leg and thigh quarters and found half of them have a broken leg, this probably why.

For this reason I have to recommend you check out the Freedom Rangers from J.M. Hatchery. http://www.jmhatchery.com They still grow out much faster than layers or so-called dual purpose birds, but are more active and generally healthier than the Cornish X. You should have a higher survival rate with them and you get a yummy bird, especially if you can put them on pasture as much as possible.

 

[WGB]

Quote:
LOL, I have that in the 3 phase motor and gear reduction! Then I put a variable frequency drive on the motor!
But thats just me messing around.
Motor and drive will also be used on my drill press.
I will tell everyone, I don't want skinned chicken, and wouldn't proccess chickens if I had to pluck them.
The whizbang is great!
I do think if you scrounge and have access to mechanical junk, and time to wait, one could be made on the cheap.
I would use the real fingers, thats going to beat a 100 dollar bill.
If I can help let me know.
Do not cut the barrel bottom off like someone said, look at mine it works great. dumps water and feather right in the top of the barrel we used!

 

[valdalefarm]

Yeah, after pricing out parts for the whizbang, I went ahead an purchased an EZPlucker. Have used it 3 times, works great.

 

[Mikey D]

Quote:
There are several that have used just that idea! Good one!

 

[Mikey D]

Quote:
I wholeheartedly agree RWD!

I am however a pack-rat Extraordinaire and already have most of what would be needed.

I love building stuff (Though if the control tower hears about another project I'm going to lose my flight status if you know what I mean

) and thought this would be fun. The one in this video seems to be rotating quite quickly, it almost seems that something around 100 - 120 RPM would be a tad easier on the chicken.

 

[Mikey D]

Quote:
LOL, I have that in the 3 phase motor and gear reduction! Then I put a variable frequency drive on the motor!
But thats just me messing around.
Motor and drive will also be used on my drill press.
I will tell everyone, I don't want skinned chicken, and wouldn't proccess chickens if I had to pluck them.
The whizbang is great!
I do think if you scrounge and have access to mechanical junk, and time to wait, one could be made on the cheap.
I would use the real fingers, thats going to beat a 100 dollar bill.
If I can help let me know.
Do not cut the barrel bottom off like someone said, look at mine it works great. dumps water and feather right in the top of the barrel we used!

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/uploads/5960_img_0967.jpg

I thought of that mod as well. Channeling debris into a container sure would beat having to rake up the yard! I kinda like the DIY airline fingers but I'll cost out the real ones against all that cutting & screwing. Thanks for the info!

 

[PotterWatch]

We also priced buying everything to build a whizbang and with the cost of all of it as well as the time investment, we went with an EZ Plucker instead (though I still have the whizbang book if anyone wants to buy it for $10). We have done about 300 birds with our EZ plucker so far and it has worked very well. We can get through 50 birds and be ready to go home within 3 or 4 hours.

 

[Mikey D]

Quote:
Agree. The only way this is done for $20.00 is if you already had almost all the parts. The plastic barrel is more than that around here and the 2x4's for the frame would be nearly that much. He states in the comments that he already had the motor, etc.

If you decide you want to buy rather than build a plucker these start at $595: http://ezpluckers.com

Herrick Kimball's Whizbang DIY model is a good one and he offers a partial parts package on some of the harder to find components (or at least he used to--I haven't check lately but his website is: http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com

You can avoid much of the skin tearing issue by not scalding at too hot a temperature or for too long. You will need a thermometer in the water to be sure that you maintain the correct temp as you go. Most people, self included, recommend 145 to 150 degrees. Opinions will vary a bit but this range works well. Dunk the birds for about three seconds and give it a little up and down motion each time to get the water penetrating to the base of the feathers. Each time you take the bird back out give a tug on one of the large wing or tail feathers. When one slides out with no resistance you have properly scalded the bird and are ready to pluck--by hand or machine.

The biggest reason you will find broken bones (barring rough handling by you,) is if your birds are Cornish Cross. They tend to outgrow their own bone growth. So their bones are often too weak and brittle for their freakish weight gain. If you have ever purchased a bag of leg and thigh quarters and found half of them have a broken leg, this probably why.

For this reason I have to recommend you check out the Freedom Rangers from J.M. Hatchery. http://www.jmhatchery.com They still grow out much faster than layers or so-called dual purpose birds, but are more active and generally healthier than the Cornish X. You should have a higher survival rate with them and you get a yummy bird, especially if you can put them on pasture as much as possible.

Took me a while but here is the direct link to the plucker fingers & everything else he sells:

Whizbang parts linkey

$108 for 125 fingers

 

[WGB]

I got my fingers off Ebay, good prices, you can get the Kents.
I got generic, they worked great.