preping

[jsawler]

Pluckers do come in different sizes. Ours would do small turkeys, but the big ones, we had to hand pluck. Even with the small turkeys, we took off the primary wing feathers and large tail feathers before they went in the plucker simply because the gap the feathers went through was too small to accommodate the large shafts on those feathers. We had the EZ plucker 151.

soooo, like up to a 20 pound bird?

 

[PotterWatch]

Ours could do a turkey that was 20lbs live, but it probably couldn't have taken anything larger than that. There are plenty of larger pluckers out there that can do even big turkeys, we just didn't have one as our primary use was broiler chickens and we only did a few turkeys once a year.

 

[aoxa]

I remember you said you were doing a trade off to borrow a plucker........I presume all went extremely well?i've never even seen one except for video on here.

I agree that it baffles people a lot to buy a bird with no skin.once they try it, they usually don't miss it.

my wife and I ''harvested'' our last 5 Saturday evening. so we're done for this year. our last bird was our largest. it skun out to 13 pounds

. it was harder to ''harvest'', but our personal best yet! I would like to actually see a plucker tho. looks SO EASY!!!

would a large bird or a turkey fit in the plucker?do they come in different sizes?

The plucker we used is one where you hold the chicken over it.








The quickest was 2 minutes, longest was 5 minutes with some touch ups due to our scalding temp being too low.

With this type of plucker you definitely could do a turkey. It got all the pin feathers too.

I find it really hard to skin around the wings. I can get everywhere else no problem, but those pesky wings!

 

[jsawler]

nice!!! looks easy enough to build too! i'm presuming an electric motor connected to a pully, to a nylon brush on a shaft similar to a car wash?with a light switch on the outside of the plywood?

 

[aoxa]

nice!!! looks easy enough to build too! i'm presuming an electric motor connected to a pully, to a nylon brush on a shaft similar to a car wash?with a light switch on the outside of the plywood?

I have no idea how to build it, but it is quite simplistic. If you go to your local Co-Op you can find one there to get a better idea how to build it yourself

The brush is called plucker fingers. You can buy them a lot of different places, and I think Co-Op sells them.


this is what the drum looks like. The fingers as well when they aren't in motion.

 

[jsawler]

beginning to think that an old washing machine with those fingers installed all through it might not be a bad idea now!