How long will this take?

[sgarrison]

We have 50 colored rangers that are ready for processing, planning on doing the plucking by hand....any ideas on how long it will take 2 novices to do this? I'm terrified we will run out of time!

 

[tackyrama]

We did 9 birds in 2 hours with the two of us and we are not experts. You will pick up speed as you go. I did the plucking and DW did the other. I plucked inside a shed and a tree trimming crew asked to see my plucking machine cuz they thought I was so fast! Next time I am going to use those rubberized garden gloves with the little bumps. They are supposed to work really good for plucking.

 

[becky3086]

I would break it up into several days.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

definitely would break it up into a couple different days!

we whipped thru 6 in a couple hours - after we plucked the first one we threw in the towel and skinned the rest....it was so much faster!

also you want to make sure you have enough room to chill them all. for instance do you have an extra fridge? ours did not chill enough when we used the extra big cooler with ice water. we emptied our beer fridge (heaven forbid!) and put them in there to chill for a couple days.

and you might get tired trying to do it all at once.
;-)

we prioritized our biggest roosters and we'll do the hens and smaller males later.

good luck!

 

[jaku]

Ouch... 50 birds by hand?? Two people? You've never done it before? Honestly, you're looking at a lot of work. I'll give you my experience on both ends of the spectrum. My first batch of birds, I did about 10, with a crew of three, all by hand, in a full day. Now, I have an auto plucker, scalder, and an experienced crew of three, and we did 37 in about 5 hours.