Plucking-machine or by hand??

[ChickenCanoe]

We just bought one for $100.

Is it a tub plucker? How many birds does it do at a time?

 

[Meca]

No, it's more of a table top one. It only does one bird at a time.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

That's cheap. I'd like to see a picture.

 

[Meca]

That's cheap. I'd like to see a picture.

Let me see if I can get a picture for you. It's really old but it worked great when we butchered our old egg layers.


Ours look similar to this
http://www.strombergschickens.com/p...r-Drum-Style-Poultry-Plucker/Poultry-Pluckers

But it is enclosed at the bottom and on the sides.

 

[wsmoak]

A table-top plucker is good to start with, but if you are going to keep doing this long term, you will eventually want a tub-style plucker.

We did our first birds by hand, which got old very quickly! Then we upgraded to a table-top plucker powered by a drill. (Large diameter PVC pipe with rubber fingers sticking out.) It sort of worked. You had to keep tightening the drill chuck and/or the bolts and washers holding it together or it would stop spinning. That also got old quickly!

I refused to process any more birds until I had a tub-style plucker, so we skipped doing a batch of meat birds last Fall and returned to eating store-bought chicken. (Blech.) After a while, I showed DH the options: Featherman plucker for over $1000, made-in-China knock-off for somewhat less, or the Whizbang book and kit for $400 plus probably another $100 or so depending on what you already have on hand, plus many hours of measuring, drilling, cutting, and assembling.

We went with the Whizbang kit, and *finally* got it (almost) finished in time for me to start processing the now 11-week old birds. :0

What a difference! The table-top plucker was 10 times better than doing it by hand... this is 100 times better than the table-top plucker.

Another point I don't think anyone else mentioned: to bruise, you need blood flow. Since the chickens are bled out before scalding and plucking, all that flopping around does not bruise the meat, though you do sometimes get some damage if one gets a leg or head stuck down the side of the plucker. Also if your scalding water is too hot, it seems to make the skin tear easier.

-Wendy

 

[Meca]

I figured that maybe some day we would upgrade. And for $100 we couldn't turn it down.

 

[charthorn]

Broke down and ordered an EZ Plucker and used it for the first time last night. WOW!!!!! It did a great job. It cleaned three chickens in less than 15 seconds with no damage to the birds. I'll be hard pressed to go back to hand plucking.

 

[alscatS]

New hear and remember as a kid - plucking chickens - stinks and sucks -
I have heard some great ideas on cutting down the smell- washing or rinsing before the scald & pluck is just genius

Anybody have a plucker brand they like>?
Wizzbang plucker?
there are a few DIY -
the tub ones seem over $400


Whizbang Chicken Pluckerng Chicken Plucker

 

[czoellner]

DH built our tub style Plucker last year and we've only gotten to try it out once for 3 birds for a friend. But I'll tell you what, never never never going back to hand plucking again! We have 8 CX to do in about 2 weeks, then this time next year we'll be doing 20 layers. Every year after that will be about another 20 as we rotate our hens.

He borrowed a friends, "you can build your own whiz-bang chicken Plucker" manual and did just that! Took him about a week to collect up the parts, spent about $30 total, and took 3 days to build it and another 2 days to fine tune it.

I recommend getting, borrowing, renting, building one! They are such a time saver!