Dry Plucking?

[ColbyNTX]

How many of you dry pluck your turkeys? Is it much harder than scalding? I have always scalded but it can be such a pain in the butt and I hate the smell of wet feathers! Are the wings the toughest part to pluck of a dry bird?

 

[Frosty]

We tried it one year... maybe we didn't kill it right? It was a pain... or maybe the bird froze 5 minutes after we killed it? Speaking of which... gotta start the water heating.

 

[DCS]

That's what I did last year. It is a LOT easier than the chickens for some reason. The wings were definitely hard, and I cheated and just cut them off at the joint. I had to quarter them to roast them anyway, so it didn't matter. This year, I might try just scalding the wings after dry plucking the rest. Depends on how frustrated I get! (I know mom plans to roast a whole bird at Christmas, so I want it to look pretty)

 

[MovieFanz]

We just dry plucked our today. We did get the bird drunk with 3 shots of wild turkey in a syringe. The bird was so relaxed he never even flapped his wings. I will always use the bourbon in the future. We did debrain and then bleed the bird. We pulled all the feathers off with him hanging. I like dry plucking better. The only spot I had problems with was the wing tips. Those I did dip in a small pan of hot water after the rest of the bird was plucked.


He was a 9 month old slate tom. He was 14 lbs when he was done. We kept the biggest for breeding. I thought he would have been alot bigger. Alot of that weight seems to be fat and not meat. So far there is no rigor mortis.

 

[kuntrygirl]

I dry plucked yesterday. It was a piece of cake "with ice cream. No problems at all.

 

[Steve_of_sandspoultry]

Quote:
Any pictures of that?

Steve

 

[AlbionWood]

The wings, especially at the tips, are indeed the hardest part; you have to get those first, just as soon as you possibly can. The tails are next. After that the body feathers pluck easily.

We did 5 birds yesterday and mostly dry-plucked all of them, but we did scald the wings. Also the little feathers on the shanks are much easier if scalded, you just rub them off, and it's the only way to peel the scaly skin off the knees.

My wife hates the smell and stickiness of hot wet feathers, so prefers dry-plucking even though it is slower. So for us the best compromise was dry-plucking the bodies, then scalding for the wings and shanks.

If there's a next time, we'll make or borrow a plucker, and scald the whole birds. I think scalding makes the pinfeathers easier to remove, too, and these birds had a lot of those.

 

[ColbyNTX]

It was super windy and 75deg at butcher time so I decided just to scald because I(or my wife) didn't want me to get feathers all over the place. Wet feathers don't blow around as much!

 

[Mother of All]

question debrain what do you mean debrain? do you mean be- headed just wanted to make sure I'm not missing something

 

[MovieFanz]

Quote:
Its another words for putting the knife in the brain though the mouth and twisting it. It kills them instantly.