EZ Plucker

[Oregon Blues]

Anyone have any experience with the EZ Plucker? The only place I've found them for sale is from CCONLY. Any experience with him?

I'm thinking about ordering one and it's a bit of money to gamble on an unknown.

Thanks

 

[PotterWatch]

We have one that we got about five months ago. We've been very happy with it so far.

 

[RoosterGeek]

Quote:
I've heard very good things about their products. Their customer service - not so much.

I plan on getting one in the fall. We should have a few people review theirs with pictures of the internals.


I really want one of their smaller models but I prefer a gear reducer instead of a belt/pulleys. I believe Featherman has a gear reducer on all of their machines, but the price is higher.


Potter, which model do you have and do you think you could take pictures of the gears/pulleys for me please?

 

[PotterWatch]

I think we have the 151. It is down at the farm right now and I am home, but when I go down to feed and water the chickens tomorrow, I will try to get some pictures for you.

 

[RoosterGeek]

Quote:
Thanks!

 

[fresheggs4u]

i have one and have used it three times so far. It is an awesome piece of equipment. I plumbed in a water hose fitting with a valve and it works great. The only complaint that i have with the unit is the wheels. They are way too small. They would work if you are on concrete or pavement. I use it in the yard. The unit is heavy and was hard to move around. I actually built a cart, and mounted it on the cart. I also put a drain in the bottom of the cart and attached a hose to run the water off away from my work area. I built a wire basket that fits under the discharge to catch the feathers and let the water out the drain. The next thing I might do is to make a lid for it. I have the one that is plumbed for water and it slings water out, not bad but enought to be annoying.


I slaughtered 14 birds today and from catching to cooler it took about 8 minutes per bird. Plucking took about 30 seconds at the most for two to three birds. A told my wife this after noon that I should have made my cart longer and mounted my turkey fryer (scalder) on the cart. That way all i would have to do is to roll it out of the shed, connect the power and water and get started.

I too was concerned about ordering from them especailly online for that amount of money. They communicated very good with me. Shipped it as agreed and on time.

I hope this helps.

 

[RoosterGeek]

Quote:
Awesome. Which model do you have Fresh Eggs? Any chance we could get you to take close up pictures as well? Does your have the gear reducer or pulleys?

 

[anthonyjames]

I purchased the EZ-188 or something like that last year so that I could do quail. Well I had some issues with the motor and amp conversions. After all was said and done they sent me new motor and I have yet to put it in.


Reason being is because I want to sell at Farmers Markets in WI you have to have all product processed at a State Inspected facility. So I am planning on putting in the new motor in a few weeks as I have some Turkeys that people are purchasing and picking up from me.

So other than that problem their service has been great.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Was there actually a problem with the motor? I thought I had read that you were using an undersized generator to try to run it?

I ordered an EZ-188 the other day, I should have it on Friday.

Roostergeek, why the concern about belts? I have so much belt driven equipment around here that I don't even give it a second thought. This morning I was mowing the village park with a 35 HP diesel tractor and a 6 foot underslung deck. The deck has three belt driven blades, bogging it down in tall, wet grass that mower deck would actually stall the diesel engine without the belts slipping a bit.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

My EZ-188 was delivered today. I ordered the EZ-188 and some killing cones from CConly. They charged me freight for the plucker and UPS shipping for the cones, but both arrived freight...

I was supposed to pick up the plucker at the freight company's terminal an hour away, saving me $150 on residential liftgate service. The trucking company made a mistake and delivered it anyways. It didn't cost them any more as they were making another delivery in the area anyway.

Here are some photos:

Alongside my oldest son to give you an idea of size. This is one heavy machine, around 175 lbs. The drum is what I would call medium gauge sheet stainless steel, you could probably dent it with a good punch of the fist, but with it formed into a drum and with stiffening rings it is pretty sturdy. The base is only covered with very light gauge stainless steel flashing. Sub-assemblies are spot welded, with sub-assemblies being pop-riveted together or to the frame. All of the base flashing is pop riveted on, except for around the motor cover where the covers are screwed on for access to the motor. The entire assembly is made in China for CConly.

Lots of heavy plucker fingers (188 of them)

Frame and drive assembly. The frame is made of angle iron and is heavily galvanized. I noticed that one of the back legs was bent in at a 15 degree angle. I though we had bent something unloading it, but upon closer inspection I realized that it had been welded together that way. The motor in this unit is a 1500 watt (2 hp) Chinese made motor with twin start capacitors. For some reason the lower pillow block has a grease zerk, while the upper one, a different part number, does not. The rotating plucker plate is backed up with a very heavy, cast, three spoke wheel. The plucker plate has a few fingers turned upside down to throw water and feathers out the chute. This model has dual drive belts. The rotating assembly with the cast pulley and cast wheel is very heavy and will have quite a bit of inertia behind it to keep things moving.

[

This is the plumbing for water. There is no valve or hose connector. It is a 1/2" female PVC connector to be plumbed by the user. The sprayer assembly is 3/4" reinforced vinyl hose. It has seemingly random drilled holes that weren't deburred.

Multi-model ID plate wasn't struck to show actual model or options:

All in all, for the asking price of less than $1000, this is a nice piece of equipment. It is not a commercial grade plucker, but looks more than capable of home / light commercial usage. If you were to go to your local welder / sheet metal shop and asked them to build you a unit, this is very likely what you would end up with.

By the way, if you buy one of these and want to remove the protective plastic film from the stainless steel, it was assembled without removing the film from underneath mating surfaces or underneath the plucking fingers. Before you remove the film, I'd suggest scribing around every edge with a pen knife or you will end up with little bits of stretched film poking out from every crack and crevice.