kitchener plucker

[Molpet]

I do turkeys in the yardbird. I pull the long tail and wing feathers....then take the feet and neck off of birds that end up 17lb dressed. Have to stop it and flip or untangle though . A 10-12 lb I just take the long feathers, feet and head off

 

[Mosey2003]

I have the Kitchener from Amazon. Got it this spring I think, I really like it.

Assembly had a couple hitches. I had the same issues with the little tabs where you latch the top on, had to hit one with a screwdriver. Not a huge deal. Mine seems to have lost the two tiny nuts that attach the magnet sensor before it got to me. I had to go to the hardware store to get some. Again, not a big deal since I had the little screws, but a bit of a pain.

I've done probably 40 birds with it so far. Big Cornish Cross were fine, but I did need to remove the legs for best results. I just did some 15.5 week Heritage Barred Rock cockerels a couple weeks ago and I had an issue with the big, long feathers jamming up in one spot between the side of the barrel and the bottom plate. Got them pulled out and was a little fiercer with the hose, problem solved.

I always have a few feathers to hand pluck left, typically in the armpits. Not a big deal to me, the majority of the work is done in 30 seconds, which is a huge time saver.

So, overall, for the price, I absolutely recommend it. You're looking at $500 for one of the really good pluckers, and $279 is much better for backyard use. Most of us aren't going to do more than 50 a season anyway.

 

[Mosey2003]

As an aside, I don't know what I was thinking about using the hose initially. I was spraying the bird basically. I don't think that's what you're supposed to be doing. That feather jam made it click in my mind that the purpose of the hose is to wash the feathers down and out, so once I started aggressively spraying around the sides, with a view to be washing the feathers down, things went better.