drum pluckers?

[pintail_drake2004]

Hey folks,

My wife and I have been scalding and hand plucking all our chickens thus far. We were interested in a drum plucker. I looked into building one, but for the cost of materials, you could practically buy one (without counting your time to build one). We are interested in hearing your recommendations on:
Drum pluckers
How much it cost
Where you purchased it
What you like/don't like about it
Any thing else that would be helpful to know about drum pluckers.

Thanks.

 

[RoosterML]

Can't help besides having used one and the one we borrowed from a friend work great. I have no idea what brand it was. It did work better when two birds were done at the same time. You did need to pay close attention as sometimes the wing would get caught down in between the outter drum and center rotating platform. Sorry I can't help but I will be watching the tread.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

RoosterML, I have read that most of them do work better with 2 birds in them. How many did you do? Do you remember how long it took you to finish?

 

[RoosterML]

We did 25. It was our first time doing anything like this. Put it this way I was watching "hot to eviscerate a chicken" on YouTube that morning. It took 6 hours from culling first bird all the way through to plastic heat shrinking the last bird and everything cleaned up. Oh yeah and a whole lotta beer. After looking at some online photos we may have been using one made by Featherman. Really would not even want to do it without the plucker. Also the one we used had the built in sprinkler around the top but we just used a regular hose it allowed you to put the water where you wanted and better control on the amount of water.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

I have done 6/hr by hand with the assistance of my wife. But I'd like to up production a bit. I told her that I wasn't going to do several dozen in a weekend by hand anymore. I want a plucker, but don't know much about them, what brands to stay away from, which ones are well made, etc.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

No one else uses a drum plucker?

 

[oldrooster]

I have no birds currently, and therefore no plucker, but there are many threads on here about them many about the featherman mentioned earlier, and also some make them using plans and you may look up about those because some people choose to buy one rather than make one and post about it post about how there's compares to the home made.

 

[Farmer Doc]

We bought a Yardbird plucker from Tractor Supply late this summer and it is awesome. Two birds in at a time and we remove the feet (they get caught up sometimes); they come out clean or with just a few feathers in 20-30 seconds. Scald first as usual. We hand plucked at first and can't believe the difference. I watched the sales and used a coupon for a great deal. We use it for our ducks and geese too - one at a time on those. Saves a lot of time. We wax the waterfowl after for a finished look but chickens look great when done.

 

[charthorn]

A few years ago I bought an EZPLUCKER. I run about 50 birds a year through it and it does a great job. Give them a good scald and drop them in the plucker, 15 seconds and you have a clean bird.

 

[pintail_drake2004]

Thank you.