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Average Member
 
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Has anyone ever built a Whizzbang Chicken Plucker?
I saw one on YOuTube, and then saw some built with cordless drills. Do they work?
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Junior Member
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| I made a chicken plucker that I used with a corded drill - as it has more power than our cordless. I used a Velcro strap to hold the drill on at the right speed (the speed on our drill is determined by how much you depress the button), and used a power strip plug-in to shut it on and off in between chickens. Here is a link to the website where I found instructions: http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/showthread.php?t=130787. This is a picture of my plucker: 
Here's the set-up after a few uses: 
Here are a couple of plucked birds: 
Here are notes I posted on another forum last summer when I first used the plucker: My observations on making and using the plucker:
I did not print out the directions, so made my “fingers” 4 inches long. The most difficult part of making the plucker attachment was in cutting the fingers down. I used a utility knife and a sharp scissors, tapered the head of the finger to get it through the 3/8” hole, then pulled it through with a pliers. I drilled all of the holes in the 4” PVC end cap, installed the fingers, then installed the carriage bolt. I found that I needed to put 2 nuts on the bolt to keep it from loosening while the drill is running.
I bungee’d the drill to a saw horse, so that the attachment could run freely. I used a Velcro cord keeper to keep the drill on (it took some adjusting to find the right speed – too fast almost tore the chicken out of my hands, too slow and it wouldn’t keep turning). Once I found the right speed, I unplugged the drill between birds. One piece of advice: if you don’t wear glasses, make sure to wear safety glasses, as it spits out quite a bit of nasty wet chicken water when the plucker is running. Also, keep your mouth closed!!!!
Upon eviscerating this batch of chickens, I found that all of them were pullets, which rather surprised me. Some of them had very thick legs, so that is not an accurate way of telling pullets from cockerels. Also, some of these had combs and wattles that were starting to get large and dark red. I guess these birds are just to a point of maturity for all of those things to start happening.
All in all, it took me three hours to set up, butcher, and clean up afterward (I had made the drill attachment the day before). These birds will not require any further cleaning up of feathers, as did my last batch. It does seem like a lot of time for 5 chickens, but I was still figuring out some of what I was doing, so it really isn’t all that bad. Next time, I’m sure it will take me much less time.
Karen
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Average Member
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Average Member
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thanks.
Birds came a week early and I'm getting them tomarrow. I also found and made new feeders from food grade pails and a C-tractor from wood found around here. Cool eh?
now I wonder if I could rig up a timmed, feeder that would shut off every 12 hours so that I didn't need to worry if I got home late. Maybe like a deer feeder system.
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Junior Member
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I just get used to how much my chicks will eat in a day and feed them in the morning, planning that they will run out in about 12 hours.
Karen
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Average Member
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| I'm on the road now and then. I don't just farm... sometimes I'm in Erie, sometimes I'm in Scranton..sometimes I'm home. That is why I don't Milk cows. I don't have that kind of life.
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Senior Member
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That's cool MrsK...I always love it when people work their way through a problem and come up with a home solution rather then buying their way out of a problem. Sometimes we think we are so smart today, but the fact is we really only use money to buy a solution to a problem that someone else thought of. In years past, our forefathers used their heads to devise simple tools to do amazing things.
Recently I moved rocks from a rockwall. I used a quarter million dollar excavator at 100 bucks and hour to do it, while my forefathers used a pair of oxen most likely traded for 9 bushels of oats or whatever. Yeah they would be amazed at what it could do, but they would be appalled at what it cost in money to do that.
Your example is even better because it uses modern technology to accomplish a laborious task. Good for you...and keep it up. We need more of this in society and a whole lot less marketing!!
Eat lamb...because 50,000 coyotes CAN'T be wrong!
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Average Member
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| The whiz bang is a bucket filled with fingers, you just drop the birds in and it spins round like a wash machine. Feathers go out the bottom.
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