Chicken plucker

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I've been doing some web searches as well. Buddy and I bought around 30 that we will need to butcher in a couple of weeks. I'm leaning towards just skinning them as I've not been able to find anybody with a plucker I can borrow.
 
I built one, the "whiz bang" style I think they call it. Wasn't much to it, I already had the motor. I used rubber fuel line instead of buying fingers. I need to make a few changes, but it sure beat hand plucking.
 
neighbors have one of them whizbang pluckers.. they do a bunch of meat birds, works well on chickens and turkeys, not so good on waterfowl though
 
I saw one where a guy had used pieces of water hose as the fingers. Wasn't he best as it took longer to pluck. A good one would be cool to have, tho.
 
whizbang design is what im looking at. I have a motor I can use but I would need to buy that shaft with the pulley im not sure how much those are. I am thinking about buying 100 chicks raise up and process them.
 
M-5":12iqq3r6 said:
Dip in Hot water and go to plucking, my grandmother would do 25 to 30 at a time. I was in charge of singeing them most of the time. I use wax on ducks if I need a few plucked.
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Yup, quick and dirty and gets the job done.
 
Sky, lighten up on Your hip pocket and buy what You need. Lot's designs and DIY out there, but for You
One Tree will pay for what You want. Respect all I read what You do Your life, family, but think this no-brainer. You want a chicken plucker, buy it. All DIY units look time consuming with some saving.
My Opinion, did approx 200 by hand every year growing up.
 
wlamarparmer":zhtc6v2r said:
Sky, lighten up on Your hip pocket and buy what You need. Lot's designs and DIY out there, but for You
One Tree will pay for what You want. Respect all I read what You do Your life, family, but think this no-brainer. You want a chicken plucker, buy it. All DIY units look time consuming with some saving.
My Opinion, did approx 200 by hand every year growing up.
Click to expand...

Oh yea I can easily buy it but I do like building stuff I get more satisfaction knowing I built it. Anyone can swipe a card or dish out cash. I was thinking of a project myself and family could do together really. The other side is after this loss of calves I sell I may have no pockets at all :lol2:
 
Get on the website that sells the high end ones. I can't remember the name. Anyway, they have a list of rentals. Rent one this first time. You can see how it's made, and what to improve on. Then if you want to do another batch you can build your own, or buy one like the other poster mentioned.
 
Me and a buddy from work made everything except the motor. I had less than $100 in it, but can't remember the exact amount. Took an old plastic drum and cut the top and bottom off. If I had to do it again, I wouldn't cut the entire bottom off, just a round hole. I made the frame out of 2x4s. Welded up a piece of round stock to a piece of 1/16" plate and mounted the rotating base to that. The fingers were attached with regular bolts, just shoved the tubing over the threads. There's more to it than I'm explaining of course, but it went together pretty fast. We'd never done chickens before, and we had 20 done in less than 2 hours. That includes cleaning, gutting, everything. If I get a chance I'll snap a few pics of it. I'd maybe think of starting with 25 or so before jumping into 100. You'll learn things about doing the 25 that will make the 100 go smoother. Including raising them, they're filthy, lazy animals.
 
I've posted on here last fall about processing turkeys. I found and Amish guy that did them for me for $6 a bird (plucked and bagged) but he doesn't know how long he will be doing it before the state shuts him down like they have the rest of the Amish processing. The Amish used to build the wiz-bang pluckers and sell them a lot around here. The blue plastic barrel wiz-bang plucker just as Magis described is what he used except he had the regular plucker fingers. A steel drum over a fire heating water was the dipping tank before the wiz-bang. It worked as slick as could be. He had a turkey plucked in less than 30 seconds. I've plucked my share by hand and if its cold out, you won't get it plucked before the bird cools off.

Search online-The fingers sell for about 50 cents a piece or less. Kits with the base plate and fingers sell for over $150-way more than what its worth since its such a simple design. I'm building one here this summer.
 
We have two sets of Featherman chicken processing equipment at work that we rent out. We started with one set and there was so much demand that we bought a second set. When the first set was ordered I raised 50 birds to be the trial run. Three of the kids and I killed, plucked, gutted, and washed up 50 birds in a little under 2 hours. I found that three birds at a time in the plucker seems to work best. Toss in the birds, turn on the switch, and about 15 seconds later you have three naked chickens. Sure beats doing it by hand.
 
I also see some other pluckers made from drills with a 4 inch pvc pipe with fingers that folks are using on youtube
 
skyhightree1":mkw0lpkw said:
I think this plucker is quick and easy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6rL3upe5BQ
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I like the idea but I would build it in such a manner that the feathers would be collected and easy to clean up. He had feathers flying off into space. A taller board on the back side, a sloped floor, with a chute at the back so the feathers could easily be washed into a container would certainly help.
 

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