Gloves for plucking by hand

[Echelontheory101]

I don't think that plucking by hand is the worst part of the butchering chore, but today I found a way to make it go even faster & easier. I had often heard that using those knit gloves with the rubber dots can be helpful, and today I proved it to myself. Included as a bonus with a recent order were a pair of these http://www.qcsupply.com/clothing/gloves/77105-pvc-dot-string-knit-gloves.html so I tried using them while plucking the 4 capons I butchered today.

I was VERY impressed with the way they made the job go faster & easier. After a good hot scald (I dunk about 10 times in 150 degree water) I hung the birds by their tied-together legs and just wiped away the feathers with the gloves. It was like removing the lint from a dryer trap. These gloves also helped me get a good grip on the tough wing feathers so they pulled out very easily. Even the big thorny pin feathers popped out easily when I just scraped with my gloved fingertips against the grain.

Of course these gloves will get wet very quickly as you work on the wet feathers. I kept latex gloves on under these cotton gloves to keep my hands dry, so they wouldn't get all prune-y or chapped. If you have a lot of birds to do you may want to have more than one pair of these knit gloves to use, so you can hang them to dry when they get really heavy & wet and use a fresh pair.

Who needs a mechanical plucker? Instead, spend your time & energy devising a machine that will automatically suck out the guts in an instant!

I prefer plucking by hand as well I went to culinary school and came from the restaurant industry and I am new to having chickens in my yard myself but I am not new to processing meat chickens and the first time I saw a chicken put through a plucker it seemed like such a aggressive violent process of essentially whacking this chicken around a barrel full of bristles or holding it on some weird medieval looking spinning wood dowel thing that essentially just beats the feathers off of it and it just felt to me at least, really disrespectful to the life of the chicken and for not much time/effort savings. I understand that it's dead and no judgement from me on what people use, it's me I have no problem with that, but it also doesn't really to me seem to save time. Watching the plucker process and then still having to pick spare stuff off afterwards versus doing it by hand once you have experience doing it really only saves half a minute per bird which I guess if you have hundreds of birds is a big time save but I agree plucking by hand seems the most efficient and respectful to the life of the animal you're eating and gives it a little dignity in death for sure