PurpleChicken's and Perfectly_Polish's Chicken plucker- idea's needed!

[PurpleChicken]

I'm gonna make a Home Depot run later and see what kinda goodies
I can find to make one. Trouble is I have no birds to try it on.

 

[PurpleChicken]

I just came up with 3 more ideas I'm gonna try.

1 - Take an automotive buffer and make a new wheel with fingers in it.

2 - Make an attachment for a benchtop grinder

3 - Find a cheap drum sander and add fingers

Controlling speed is the only issue. I've got a 1000watt rheostat (basically a big dimmer)
that may help me vary the motor speed.

Hmmm

 

[Leslie In North Pole]

Have you read the book on how to make a whizbang? It takes over 100 fingers to make whizbang. I am going to try to put one together this fall, I have been sitting on the parts for almost two years now and something always seems to come up. You can also order some of the parts from the author, which I think is cool because it supports someone like us, who raises backyard chickens and processes them with his family. I also think that the parts are really well made and I figured buying them also saved me lots of time as I would have spent hours trying to fabricate them.

I am tempted to get his plans for the whizbang scaulder as well, it just looks like it makes everything so much easier.

http://www.whizbangbooks.com/ is the site he has up now and it has links to the original essays and photo essays that got me so keen to have a plucker. This will be the first year that I really need one, so I better get on in.

Edited to add: http://whizbangbooks.blogspot.com/2007/12/whizbang-6.html Shows the parts they carry and has information on the bottom of where you can buy fingers.. I think they are the people that actually manufacture them. I had to go through Strombergs because of how I needed them to ship to Alaska. I also bought pinning knife and a lung remover and my husband loves them.

 

[PurpleChicken]

The whizbang won't work for me. It's too big to store & too expensive to build.
If I'm going to go through all that I'd rather just spend the $300 for a table
top model.

If we were going to do this many birds all the time it would be different. For
processing birds a few at a time a small one would be perfect.


As for a scalder my turkey fryer works great and it fries a mean turkey too.

 

[lost]

Do you have to scald them first are can you just pluck them and freeze them? I'll be back later going swimming in the new pool

 

[silkiechicken]

You can dry pluck (without scalding) but it is often much more challenging. Scalding makes feathers come out real good. Just scald at about 140-160 though or you'll cook the bird. Lower temps longer is usually better, especially on young birds. You can test it on a foot first by dipping it in the water, if the sock comes off, you're good to go, if the foot goes stiff or you can't pull the sock off, you'll either cook your bird or the water is not hot enough/more time.

 

[perfectly_polish]

PC here is a video of the plucker you were going to buy on ebay-

 

[Beanbag]

my husband had once told me that the best way to de-feather or pluck a bird is to boil it and the feathers just kinda fall out with hardly being touched... idk if this works or not or if its anything you'd want to do or anything.

 

[perfectly_polish]

Quote:
That is what we have been doing, but in 2 months we'll be doing over 100 birds, and hand plucking is just too time consuming.

 

[PurpleChicken]

Quote:
I had to watch that video a few times. It looked like that chicken came back to life.
I don't think they scalded it either.