Chicken plucker

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Built this thing over the last two days. Used it on 24 chickens and 2 ducks. Strips a chicken in about 10 seconds Still need to add a switch, wheels and a handle Sent from my HTC One X using TapatalkLast edited by darlingtonfarm; 06-13-2014 at 06:07 PM.
Reply:Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
Reply:My son has one he made almost identical!  Basis is a stripped top-load washing machine on spin cycle.  Same black plastic/rubber plugs.  He raises chickens and ducks.  Even did a wild turkey last fall.JerryLast edited by storeman; 06-13-2014 at 06:16 PM.30+ yrs Army Infantry & Field Artillery, 25 yrs agoMiller 350LX Tig Runner TA 210, spool gunLincoln 250/250 IdealArcESAB PCM 500i PlasmaKazoo 30"  vert BSKazoo 9x16 horiz BSClausing 12x24 lathe20T Air Press
Reply:Are you running a chicken nudist colony now?
Reply:Funny, yeah nude chickens hanging out in a jacuzziSent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
Reply:for a quick minute i misread the title of your thread and thought that was some kind of pervy toy:. nice job and mag drill.i.u.o.e. # 15queens, ny and sunny fla
Reply:Man that looks awesome. That's a lot of work you've done and looks nice.Fireman BillHH 210 MVPMM 211 Spoolmate 100Lotas LTP5000D PlasmaOxy/Accet (Victor)Wards AC/DC buzz box30 ton old hyd pressA few brand name toolsA bunch of cheap toolsA wife to worry me and4 dogs to supervise me
Reply:So you just toss it in the barrel and it does all the work?   Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
Reply:Thanks, yep I forgot to take a video but you just toss em in and about 10 seconds later they are squeekee clean. It helps to spray em with a hose while they are in too. All the feathers go out a slot on the side Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
Reply:Darlington forgot to mention that you send them to heaven before they are denuded, else the experience would be much livelier!30+ yrs Army Infantry & Field Artillery, 25 yrs agoMiller 350LX Tig Runner TA 210, spool gunLincoln 250/250 IdealArcESAB PCM 500i PlasmaKazoo 30"  vert BSKazoo 9x16 horiz BSClausing 12x24 lathe20T Air Press
Reply:Looks great. Now you need to build a scalder.
Reply:Where's the slot in the side? I'm thinking of building one as well after I finish planting corn, baling bedding hay, getting the manure spread, planting sorghum sudan...Maybe this winter I'll have some time....   maybe.Lincoln Precision Tig 185Lincoln Power Mig 256Hypertherm PM 45Everlast 140STSmith O/A
Reply:Could you throw a cat in there too????   Uhh-mmmmm for "survival food," during hard times of course.   Lincoln Power Mig 216Lincoln AC/DC-225/125Miller  625 X-Treme PlasmaMiller 211 Forney 95FI-A 301HF 91110Victor Journeyman O/PMilwaukee DaytonMakita  Baileigh NRA Life Member
Reply:darlingtonfarm> this is by far one of the most practical welding projects I've seen on this whole website. I usually order about 25 black broiler chicks from Ideal Poultry every year although last year I tried red rangers from Murray McMurray and a plucker like this would sure make my life easier. --Did you design this yourself or did you work from plans available online somewhere? Would you please post a link to the plans if they're available please? And where did you pick up the rubber fingers? --Believe it or not.... I've been watching your videos for a while.... thank you so much for taking the time to add them to YouTube. --SuperArc> "Could you throw a cat in there too???? Uhh-mmmmm for "survival food," Not my cats.  I know you were just kidding but... cats are skinned just like a rabbit and pretty much grilled or used in any recipe calling for chicken. Cat... like dog..... is eaten throughout most of Asia and... the pelts are never wasted. They're bundled and sold to clothing manufacturers and end up as trim on a lot of the outerwear exported to the US.... I'm pretty sure unless stated otherwise.... almost all the fur trim on parkas and lining extreme weather bomber style hats is dyed cat... mostly from China, Korea, or the Philippines.
Reply:This looks like the WhizBangPlucker. Without seeing one do 25-30 chickens, my concern would be feather buildup. Maybe the design has considered this and I'm just not seeing it. I'll have to check your youtube channel for a video of it in action. Great work on this one.Lincoln Precision Tig 185Lincoln Power Mig 256Hypertherm PM 45Everlast 140STSmith O/A
Reply:I dident use any plans just looked at some pics of some commercial ones and some whizbang plucker and built with what I had. I got the fingers off eBay 250 of em for $100 bucks. There are two fingers pointing down that sling out the feathers there is no build up at all. I need to add a shoot to direct the feathers away from the machine they build up right on the lower pulley as it is now. Also going to add a wider base shakes pretty good with just one in the tubb.  Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk
Reply:Whizbang seems to have commandeered internet searches and they charge for their plans but last year after I hand plucked a few chickens and ended up spending too much time pinning with a strawberry husker.... I went online and found two "free" builds that at the time looked good, http://achornfarm.blogspot.com/2009/...lucker_30.html and http://www.cowgirlscountry.blogspot....n-plucker.html. Yours looks better by leaps and bounds so if you ever do a YouTube on how you put it together.... would you please share a link to it? --BTW.... we use beat up traffic cones for killing cones too. Much better than a stump with two nails.
Reply:I would be interested to know how you use the traffic cones for killing cones.This thread has dredged up so many memories from my youth as a farm boy.I recall how I was the "chief chicken killer" for my Grandmother (after Grandfather died).  My parents house sat on an acre of land on one edge of my grandparents farm. When I was 8 years old (2 years after grandpa died) I was "promoted" to CCK by my grandmother and aunts.Back then, when grandma decided she was going to put some chickens in the freezer, we would get up early before the chickens came off the roost.  This would be a family effort with my mom and other aunts pitching in.It would go like this.  Mid to late summer and I was out of school.  Out of bed at 3:30  AM.  My mom and an aunt would drag out one of the big cast iron cauldrons from the shed and set it up on the fire pit.  I would draw water from the well and carry it to fill the cauldron while my mom and aunt got a wood fire going under it.  When it was full enough to scald a chicken and the water was roiling, my grandma and I would head down to the hen house.  Still dark, but just barely starting to light the sky in the east.  I would hold a flash light while grandma would reach up on the roost and grab 4 chickens by the legs, 2 in each hand.  Then we would walk out of the fenced compound and she would hand me a hen.  Our method of killing was to "wring their neck" and it was something my grandpa taught me and a cousin before he died.  As I killed a chicken, grandma would hand me another.  When those 4 were done, we went back to the hen house and got 4 more until we had killed as many as grandma was going to freeze.As soon as I had a chicken on the ground, my mom or an aunt would pick it up and head for the cauldron to scald it. I would always have to go looking for 1 or 2 chickens that had managed to flop around while dying and ended up out in the weeds beyond the yard.After a chicken was scalded and plucked (by hand) it had to have all the "fuzz" singed off before being cut up.  The singeing was done by using a couple of pieces of old newspaper pages loosely rolled into a funnel shape and held by hand.  Whoever was singeing would hold the chicken in one hand and the newspaper in the other hand.  Light the newspaper by sticking the end into the fire under the cauldron, let the newspaper get a good blaze on it and then hold the blaze under the chicken while you twirled and rotated the chicken so that the wings and legs and all skin was licked by the flames.  After this you also did not have any hair on your hand, wrist, and forearm.It was like an assembly line (dis-assembly line really) the way everybody went from doing one thing to doing the next thing, all under the watchful eye of grandma.The cutting was done on the back yard picnic table turned butcher table by covering it with a sheet of plywood and a bunch of burlap feed sacks.  As the parts of the chicken were cut off, they were pitched into a metal tub filled with ice water.Grandma would save 1/2 gallon paper milk cartons and to prepare for a "chicken killing", she would fill the carton with water and freeze them solid weeks before the killing date.   I would draw water for the tub the evening before the date and one of my aunts open about 10 or 12 of the milk cartons and put them in the tub while the rest of us were doing other things so the water would be good and cold by the time the cutting started.The chicken parts were sorted out and put into plastic freezer bags with enough water to displace the air and then put directly into the freezer.I had to collect all the heads and guts, and plucked feathers from all this and go off to a spot on the other side of a field and bury them.Digging the burial hole was another step that was done the day before.  By the time I had to bury the leavings, the sun was up, or just rising.When everything had been done to grandma's satisfaction, I went to the hen house and let the rest of the flock out into the compound and fed them and drew water while all my aunts and grandma went to the kitchen to fix a "late breakfast".The breakfast on a chicken killing day was usually fried chicken (from that morning) with gravy and biscuits, and fried potatoes.  Some folks I have related this story to seem appalled at the thought of fried chicken for breakfast, but we always said if it had gravy and biscuits with it, it was proper. Yum!
Reply:Originally Posted by forhireLooks great. Now you need to build a scalder.
Reply:When I was a kid I saw a store bought version in action. It was two opposing drums with those rubber fingers in them. They held the chickens by the feet and sort of plunged them in and out of the thing. All the feathers went down the chute to a pile on the ground. I spose the feathers were supposed to go into a tub but in keeping with the typical small farm tradition of the times, the tub was long gone. Probably used for a water trough somewhere else.  Of course also keeping with tradition the feathers didn't get hauled off either. Let the wind deal with 'em. All galvy sheet construction of course. A lot of that stuff should still be out there somewhere. Setting right where they used it last."The things that will destroy America are prosperity at any price, peace at any price, safety first instead of duty first, the love of soft living and the get rich quick theory of life." -Theodore Roosevelt
Reply:I helped my old boss make a whizbang style one a couple years ago.  Plasma CNCed the big aluminum disk and TIGed a flange onto a 1"-diameter shaft for driving the disk.  If you leave some gap between the OD of the disk and the inside of the drum, the feathers will fling out and can be washed down and out (you spray water in the plucker while operating).With the killing cones, you stick them in there upside down so the head and neck stick out.  Chicken freezes up when upside down and you slit both sides of the neck to bleed it out.
Reply:OOPS read the tittle wrong.........PLUCKER.............................  ..................................................  ..............LOLOf all the things I lost I miss my mind the most...I know just enough about everything to be dangerous......You cant cure stupid..only kill it...
Reply:Originally Posted by roadkillbobbOOPS read the tittle wrong.........PLUCKER.............................  ..................................................  ..............LOL
Reply:I built one a few years ago, they work great. I didn't use any plans either, but all the internet chatter helped out LOT including the whizbang people. My design was so backwards, when I started welding on the frame the top ended up being the bottom before it was all over with, lol. I enjoyed the build and learned a lot. Would like to see a video of yours in action. Brings back memories, thanks for the post.I've got a couple of videos...The first one is my daughter moving it and turning it on.The second is me putting it to a real test, 3 big chickens getting plucked.                                                         MillerMatic 212, Lincoln Precision TIG 225, Hypertherm 45XP
Reply:walkerweld> "I would be interested to know how you use the traffic cones for killing cones." I checked online for you and this blog sums up the basics and even shows a few inverted traffic cones with the tops cut off if you scroll down a bit, http://goodfootproject.com/how-to-process-chicken/. I've used an ax and killed a chicken on a stump by putting its head between two nails once.... just once and I only did it because I had no choice. A hawk had gotten in and gotten to her and it just wasn't right leaving her to suffer. Blood splattered in my eyes and I ended up having to hold her down after her head was gone and she was definitely dead but still trying to take off on me. It wasn't a pleasant experience. Neither is killing them in a cone but.... the deal with a cone is that chickens calm down considerably when they're placed in it upside down because blood starts rushing to their heads. Even aggressive chickens become docile when they're carried by their legs upside down. So back to the cone, once they're in it and restrained.... it's a lot easier to slice their throats and they drain out from that position too without having to hold them. Killing a chicken.... or any bird the size of a goose or smaller.... by cervical dislocation (separating the spinal cord from the base of the brain) is probably the quickest and most humane. I've been taught how to do it but don't have it in me to actually do it.... I'm always afraid I won't get it right and the bird will suffer. --"This thread has dredged up so many memories from my youth as a farm boy.I recall how I was the "chief chicken killer" for my Grandmother (after Grandfather died). My parents house sat on an acre of land on one edge of my grandparents farm. When I was 8 years old (2 years after grandpa died) I was "promoted" to..." I'm from a small dairy farm in a poor rural area myself.... my parents were "off the boat".  I thoroughly enjoyed reading the little snippet from your childhood and it brought back memories of my parents telling me what it was like growing up in an Eastern block country. I hope you preserve your memories for any children or younger relatives you have by recording yourself or starting a journal. Read what you typed again.... it's priceless.--7A740> "I'm thinking you stick the chicken in the cone, it's head sticks out & you then remove it. All you gotta do is keep the chicken shoved down inside the cone versus is wiggling around in your hands putting it on a stump." Once they're in the cone, they won't be able to pop back out on you. You won't actually remove the head.... you'll just slice the throat and let them bleed out from the cone. Once their head is placed between two nails.... you just sort of gently pull on their legs to stretch their bodies.... and their necks out and that pretty much stops them from moving around so you can get a clean strike with the ax in your other hand. The only problem is that some of them will take off on you so you really should hold them down with a hand for a bit.I use a traffic cone also. Cut the top to allow the head to stick out. Nailed to a post inverted. Birds stay very calm. From the cone to the scalder and then the plucker. I like two birds at a time in the plucker. Makes quick work of it.
Reply:Thanks guys on clearing up how the traffic cone is used.In all honesty, I don't think traffic cones had even been invented back when I was CCK.
Reply:Seems to me that when my Aunt killed a chicken, she had a real smooth motion.  Draw the chicken over the stump, whack off the head with a hatchet and fling the carcass at the same time.  They would sometimes get on their feet and run around but mostly flop.  Just had to fling them far enough not to get splattered."USMCPOP" First-born son: KIA  Iraq 1/26/05Syncrowave 250 w/ Coolmate 3Dialarc 250, Idealarc 250SP-175 +Firepower TIG 160S (gave the TA 161 STL to the son)Lincwelder AC180C (1952)Victor & Smith O/A torchesMiller spot welder
Reply:Originally Posted by 7A749... The process looks very humane and fast. They are already dead.  Doesn't make much difference. I figured the cones were basically to keep the chickens stable until they were dispatched. You can also use the cones to help keep the chickens in single lanes while they march toward the chopping block.
Reply:The way things are going they need one of those in iraq. Originally Posted by forhireI use a traffic cone also. Cut the top to allow the head to stick out. Nailed to a post inverted. Birds stay very calm. From the cone to the scalder and then the plucker. I like two birds at a time in the plucker. Makes quick work of it.
Reply:Originally Posted by 7A749Informative thread.Knew nothing about how a chicken was plucked mechanically until I read this.The process looks very humane and fast. I figured the cones were basically to keep the chickens stable until they were dispatched.
Reply:I saw a wooden version just this month outside an antique store. It had a metal embossed label from the maker on it, which was the only reason I even knew what I was looking at. Now it makes sense!City of L.A. Structural; Manual & Semi-Automatic;"Surely there is a mine for silver, and a place where gold is refined. Iron is taken from the earth, and copper is smelted from ore."Job 28:1,2Lincoln, Miller, Victor & ISV BibleDanny