How do you pluck a bird?

[jnicholes]

hello,

So, I'm curious about how other people do this. I'm a Hunter, and I hunt ducks and geese. No offense to duck and Goose lovers

I'm curious to know how you guys pluck your birds. What process do you use. I usually just dry pluck the bird.

Jared

 

[sylviethecochin]

I'm a Hunter, and I hunt ducks and geese. No offense to duck and Goose lovers

I like my ducks. But I can't keep eight-hundred drakes, and they are tasty.

It depends on the number of animals I'm doing, whether I dry or wet-pluck. If it's a couple, it's not really worth heating the water. Wax-plucking ducks is amazing, by the way. I've only done it twice, and the wax isn't fun to clean, but it was so much easier than traditional plucking.

EDT: The last two times I did ducks, I stuck to skinning them. I like skin, but ducks are fat enough, and have enough feathers, that it just isn't worth it. I've never done a wild duck, but I understand that domestic ducks have more feathers per square inch, so it really is harder to pluck them.

 

[NHMountainMan]

I also hunted ducks, and dry plucked because it was usually a manageable number to process. With chickens, I processed in a batch - so dry plucking would be a pain. I scald the chickens in approx. 140 degree water - roughly 30 seconds of swishing around and the feathers come off pretty easily. I add a few drops of dawn dish detergent in the water - really helps with cutting the odor.

 

[jnicholes]

Some good processes so far. I can't say I've heard of wax plucking. I'll have to try that sometime.

I didn't know domestic ducks have more feathers than wild ducks. You learn something new everyday!

Here's what I do. Depending on the number of birds I have, I usually dry pluck them. It's pretty easy for me to dry pluck a goose. Just takes a while. Took me a good hour to dry pluck this bird today. 6 pounds 3.2 ounces empty weight.



I always have trouble with the wings, so I just cut them off.

 

[RoosterML]

1 hour now that is some serious commitment. Not sure I would be interested in doing it if it took me that long. I do chickens but I also purchased the yardbird plucker for those. I wonder how ducks would do in a plucker?

 

[Mosey2003]

I scald my chickens at about 145F. Dip and swish repeatedly until a wing feather slides out. Then I toss them in the drum plucker and typically have a few small feathers left in the armpits to clean out. If I'm not using the plucker, I like to hang them by the legs to hand pluck so I can use both hands, though if I'm just doing one I have been known to do it in the kitchen sink. Hanging, I can pluck a bird in, ohhhhh, probably 10 minutes or less. The drum plucker takes about 30 seconds.

To me, the worst part of butchering is the setup and tear down before and after. By the time I haul out the turkey fryer and fill the pot and get it going, drag the drum plucker out, move the butcher table (with sink) over and hook it up, carry out the 5 gallon buckets and set them up, and organize my tools, that's about 15 minutes and the most manual labor of the job.

 

[jnicholes]

1 hour now that is some serious commitment. Not sure I would be interested in doing it if it took me that long. I do chickens but I also purchased the yardbird plucker for those. I wonder how ducks would do in a plucker?

Yes, it took a lot of commitment to keep going. Easy for the feathers to come off, but again, so many feathers!

 

[mandelyn]

We use a propane fired Turkey fryer as a scald tank for chickens. Wings and tail slide out easily. We only go through the extra bother for birds worth baking with skin on. If they're only 16 weeks or 3 pounds, husband skins them. If they're skinned we use them for stir fry or the crockpot or something.

 

[aliciaplus3]

We have a plucker it did about half the duck.... we did scald it first in soapy water. The tail section was clean of feathers.. the rest was well started we stopped the plucker and finished by hand cuz it was starting to pull off skin on the tail but not taking off any more feathers. It did help just not as nice a job as the plucker did on the chickens

 

[jnicholes]

So, this brings a question. Do pluckers cost a lot of money? Any recommendations for a plucker?