Pluckers?

[matthewschickens]

I am thinking about getting meat chickens and want to know what kind of plucker is the best and where to get it for not too expensive?

Thank you!!!

Matthew

 

[Sunny Side Up]

It's great that you're considering raising & processing your own meat birds. There's already a lot of great information & discussion here about benefits & disadvantages of different breeds & processing methods. And a lot of folks eager to help answer questions & encourage you along the way.

I would advise starting with just a small managable number to begin with, 25 or less, just so things don't get overwhelming right from the start. And I don't think that hand-plucking is really such a bad chore, especially if you have a few others to help and you aren't doing too many at one time. Here's a good link to information on getting a good scald, which is the key to easy hand plucking: http://thedeliberateagrarian.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-to-properly-scald-chicken-my-never.html

Certainly you should hand pluck a few chickens so that when/if you ever build a plucking machine you'll know how much effort you're saving yourself. There are easy & inexpensive models you can make that can be attatched to your electric drill, and other big tub types that can last a lifetime.

 

[Buster52]

I don't use a plucker, at least not yet. Not busy enough with it yet. But the Whizbang plucker you build yourself is the cheapest type of tub style plucker.

Featherman sells one for under $1,000 and is supposed to be high quality. http://www.featherman.net/

There are also table top pluckers for much less than any tupe of tub style plucker.

But this is the one I like best.

 

[jaku]

Hands down, a Whizbang. Get the book for $20, build the plucker for $300. It works great, and unless you're doing it commercially, it's all you'll ever need for as many birds as you've got to do.

 

[quercus21]

I'll do 25 - 30 birds twice a year. So for me, the choice for me was a table top picker. It spends more time packed away then in use. It's small, light weight and you can do a bird in less then a minute and a half. It has gotten to the point where I have to have more cones, I am waiting for the next bird to bleed out before I can continue to pluck. Mine doesn't have the stand as shown in Buster52 pictures. I set it up on a picnic table bench.
Kaj

 

[herfrds]

Check out craigslist and local classified papers. I got mine for $150. Works great for large numbers of birds and I used the drill one on my turkeys since I only processed 2.
If I am only doing one chicken for dinner I just hand pluck.

 

[bwboot]

dont know about mechanical pluckers, although the youtube videos of the whizbang chicken plucker are comical. I tryed my first chicken following the process found on http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/ and found it to be extreemly informational and not too onurous a task.

 

[heymikey]

I just finished my Whizbang. The book is really well written and I had no problems at all. I'm somewhat mechanical but I really think anyone could build one easily. The only thing I had machined was the feather plate and the spindle. I could have made the feather plate easily enough but decided to let someone else do it. I had a machinist cut the circle but I drilled all the holes and countersunk them. The spindle I bought from Herrick Kimball (The author). I haven't added receipts but I think I had about $200-$225 in it. I already had a motor which is the most expensive part. I just plucked 2 RIR roo's in about 15 seconds....WOW.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

For some people the financial cost of building a plucker is mitigated by the sheer enjoyment they get from building such a fine piece of equipment all by themselves. So if you're one of these folks who needs little excuse to make something like that then go ahead & build yourself a WhizBang!