# Chicken Plucker



## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

I went over to a neighbor’s today to slaughter some chickens. He has a “Chicken Plucker”. I’d never seen one in action. Amazing… best thing since sliced bread! My neighbor purchased his, not sure where. He also had metal cones mounted on a board. Makes the slaughter a breeze.

We slaughtered 5 young roosters I hatched out last June. At least the chicken pen will be more peaceful!

He’d slaughtered a goat before I got there. It’s cooking now, will go back for a plate in a bit!


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

Pretty neat contraption. There's some video on youtube that shows you how to make one out of an old washing machine, for those of us who always seem to build our own stuff.


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## moldy (Feb 14, 2015)

Ours is the size of a pinball machine with the cylinder mounted horizontally rather than vertically. LOVE IT! Makes butchering so much easier. We use old traffic cones for killing cones - seems so much quicker and with less pain for the bird.


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## weedygarden (Apr 27, 2011)

*Search our previous posts*

I think I posted videos before. An old washing machine tub has the rubber fingers inserted. A chicken can be plucked in just a minute or two. People who do a large amount of chicken butchering could really make some great progress in a butchering session.


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

My dad had four Chicken pluckers when I was a kid: Matthew, Mark, John and Ed.


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## zimmy (Aug 17, 2012)

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...&mid=E5D68192D41A1990C16AE5D68192D41A1990C16A


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

camo2460 said:


> My dad had four Chicken pluckers when I was a kid: Matthew, Mark, John and Ed.


Had you said Matthew, Mark, Luke and John I was going to have some questions about your avatar!!! just sayin,,,


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

I missed the Book of Ed in bible study!

That must have been the fun one!


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

That was always a joke in my family, why my parents missed Luke, but my mom wanted to name my older brother after my dad, so he was named Albert Edward Jr. we always called him Ed or sometimes Junior.


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

Cotton said:


> Had you said Matthew, Mark, Luke and John I was going to have some questions about your avatar!!! just sayin,,,


A lot of people might take my avatar in the wrong way, but in reality it's a Native American Shaman having a vision.


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## cnsper (Sep 20, 2012)

You don't need a chicken plucker, you just need the water at the right temp. I think it is around 145 or 155. With that temp the feathers come off like a prom dress. We had 5 people working a massacre at our house and we processed 150 chickens in 4 hours. That was everything done and the chickens in tubs of water cooling.


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## jeff47041 (Jan 5, 2013)

My mom never would let us use a plucker. She said it bruised the meat. Anyone else think that?
I know some people around that have their own pluckers and they love how fast it is. We still pluck by hand.


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## AdmiralD7S (Dec 6, 2012)

jeff47041 said:


> My mom never would let us use a plucker. She said it bruised the meat. Anyone else think that?
> 
> I know some people around that have their own pluckers and they love how fast it is. We still pluck by hand.


If the chicken is properly bled, then no bruising can occur. Now, I could see the possibility of tenderizing the meat with a too-aggressive plucker, but based on my experience, even that's hard to do.


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## smaj100 (Oct 17, 2012)

We slaughtered our 1st ever 8 meat birds last year and the skin was so incredibly thin my homemade drill plucker tore the skin open like wet toilet paper. Once we figured that didn't work, the skin was even tearing as we plucked them by hand. We figured maybe they got too fat too fast?


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## AdmiralD7S (Dec 6, 2012)

smaj100 said:


> We slaughtered our 1st ever 8 meat birds last year and the skin was so incredibly thin my homemade drill plucker tore the skin open like wet toilet paper. Once we figured that didn't work, the skin was even tearing as we plucked them by hand. We figured maybe they got too fat too fast?


Hadn't thought about that, but I skinned out some Americanas last summer, and their skin was plenty tough. I could tear it, but it took some work - a plucker wouldn't have done a thing to it. If I may ask, what breed were you raising?


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## smaj100 (Oct 17, 2012)

They were cornish crosses, sold by our local farm store just for meat. They got so fat, and stunk oh lord. The largest one we killed at 12 weeks was 12lbs dressed in freezer bags.  He wouldn't fit in my traffic cone he was so fat!


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

smaj100 said:


> They were cornish crosses, sold by our local farm store just for meat. They got so fat, and stunk oh lord. The largest one we killed at 12 weeks was 12lbs dressed in freezer bags.  He wouldn't fit in my traffic cone he was so fat!


I'm aware of these, but have never raised any.

That's obscene that something can grow so much, so fast!!

I wouldn't mind having fast growing meat chickens, but I'd only be interested in something that can actually lay "fertilized eggs" so I can breed them & reproduce them at home... that's not possible in 12 weeks time


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

I had some of those meat crosses a few years ago, never again. Not one of them lived long enough to slaughter. 3 developed leg problems and died. The other 3 were killed by layers the same age, they were just slow moving targets for the RIR’s.  Once one started to bleed they'd be dead in a few hours from continued attacks!


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## LincTex (Apr 1, 2011)

Cotton said:


> I had some of those meat crosses a few years ago, never again. Not one of them lived long enough to slaughter.


Sorry - that sucks 



Cotton said:


> Once one started to bleed they'd be dead in a few hours from continued attacks!


Sad but true, especially around "aggressive" breeds like RIR's. 
I have saved the lives of some pecked birds in the past because they were caught early enough, but it doesn't take long before it's "too late".


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## ClemKadiddlehopper (Aug 15, 2014)

The meat crosses do very well if treated like real chickens. They should be free ranging from not more than 2 weeks of age along with regular chickens.

I have 8 meaty hens from last summer that are starting to lay now. They are with a rooster who is half meaty (CX) and half chantecler. There are also 2 hens, Cx/chantecler who are two years old and in the flock as well. I will be hatching eggs from them all in a few more weeks. A Cx can live to 3-4 years of age if kept mobile from a young age and not over fed. They roost and do every thing the same as a heritage bird. I will say, however, that I do not feed commercial feed nor treat them in the accepted manner for meat birds.

Even when I order them from the hatchery, I have never lost any.


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## smaj100 (Oct 17, 2012)

The ones we raised lived in a seperate coop from the other birds, and they were not allowed to free range. I've wondered how they would do free ranging like the regular chickens. Have you had any meat from the free range cornish birds? Our meat was extremely dense, almost like steak. The DW was not a happy camper plucking those nasty birds and didn't really care for the meat. We might get a few this spring to put out with the normal chickens and see if free ranging them does any better.


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## cowboyhermit (Nov 10, 2012)

Cotton said:


> ... Once one started to bleed they'd be dead in a few hours from continued attacks!


When we raised lots of chickens we always made precautionary applications of "stop-pick", looks like blood but doesn't taste so good to chickens . Now that we raise non-commercial breeds and under different conditions it isn't necessary but I still do it on occasion just in case.



ClemKadiddlehopper said:


> The meat crosses do very well if treated like real chickens. They should be free ranging from not more than 2 weeks of age along with regular chickens.
> 
> I have 8 meaty hens from last summer that are starting to lay now. They are with a rooster who is half meaty (CX) and half chantecler. There are also 2 hens, Cx/chantecler who are two years old and in the flock as well. I will be hatching eggs from them all in a few more weeks. A Cx can live to 3-4 years of age if kept mobile from a young age and not over fed. They roost and do every thing the same as a heritage bird. I will say, however, that I do not feed commercial feed nor treat them in the accepted manner for meat birds.
> 
> Even when I order them from the hatchery, I have never lost any.


So, did you have actual Chanteclers then? If so what was your opinion, they are a very rare breed around here.


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## ClemKadiddlehopper (Aug 15, 2014)

cowboyhermit said:


> When we raised lots of chickens we always made precautionary applications of "stop-pick", looks like blood but doesn't taste so good to chickens . Now that we raise non-commercial breeds and under different conditions it isn't necessary but I still do it on occasion just in case.
> 
> So, did you have actual Chanteclers then? If so what was your opinion, they are a very rare breed around here.


Yes, I have actual Chanteclers. I like them a lot. They are poorly bred by the backyard crowd, but I scraped up as many as I could from all over Ontario/Quebec and started some very selective breeding and aggressive culling. I now have some pretty decent Chanties. I like them a lot. They are good natured, very cold hardy, and average around a five lb carcass at 18 weeks. Decent egg laying with an egg every other day. Some of my Chanteclers have ended up in Alberta.


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