The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: graham-j on December 29, 2012, 08:59:20 am
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Hi,has any one got any experience of plucking and preparing geese in larger quantities.
This is the first year I have processed geese in any quantity and I've got to say it was as absolute nightmare.On the advices of others and from what I have read in books and the Internet,I dispatched them,hung them for a week in my cold store.I then rough plucked them removing the flight and tail feathers by hand,then the top feathers on a bingam plucker.I then dipped them in hot wax set to 80C aloud them to cool then picked off all the wax with the down this in its self was a lot harder than I expected the wax broke into small pieces and took absolutely ages to pick off.
All in all each bird took at least an hour probably more like an hour and a half.Even with help the most I could manage in a day was 5.With turkeys and cockerels to do as well this made things very difficult.
Any advice on this subject would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks Graham.
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We have a plucking machine that looks like a table with rollers that you drop the birds into. Got it from Ascot and it has been a blessing. We do fine finish by hand though as if you get too keen with plucking machines they tend to rip the skin. With the geese you can seer the last of the bits off by quickly skimming over the bird with a blow torch, VERY CAREFULLY!. You must be careful to kill when the feathers are not quilling as they do at the end of Autmn, they are ten times easier to pluck then.
Before we got the machine, those who wanted a goose came to a plucking party, plucked their own with the aid of a bottle of the good stuff! ;)
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Hi,do you have to scold them first with your machine.
Thanks Graham.
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I dont know if you can or not but my OH always does them dry, outside so it looks like a snow machine. ;D
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Hi,I bet there a feathers every where,how long dose it take him.
Graham
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I could not tell you that he just disapeared into the barn for a couple of evenings and 17 where done. That was steady rate not rushing for orders etc as we eat all our own meat through the year. Turkeys and geese are all year here.
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Hi,its the same here,but it sounds like you man really has got the knack for geese doing 17 in a couple of evenings.
Are you sure he isn't scolding them first this would make the feathers come out a lot easier.
Graham.
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Nope he hates wet feathers. I suppose most folk kill on a time scale , we kill when the feathers are right on the live bird, ie not quilling. It really does make things an awful lot easier.
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Wow,I'm going to have to give one of these machines a go,I take it is the type with the rubber fingers.I have some of these I will have to try and make something.
Graham.
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I got some brilliant stuff from France: it's rosin/resin but can't remember the make. Rub the powdered stuff into the feathers, plunge in really hot water for about a minute, then into cold to set it and pretty much pull the feathers out in handfuls. It worked better on ducks than the geese, but I think I was a bit abstemious on the breast down and will be more generous next time.
Made an easy job of it, where as before, I'd have prefered to keep my geese for eggs.
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if for your own consumption why bother to pluck them, just skin them and joint them into 2 breasts, thighs legs neck etc hardly any waste but no crispy skin but also takes about 15 mins per bird , get a boning knife.
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have a look at my new posting ANYONE TRIED THESE
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Hi,but these weren't for my self the were for Christmas sale.Hence why I need to improve things for next year.
Graham.
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i know what you mean.... i had several to do one year and the few old boys that did them slowly packed it in even the last one i used stopped that year. so i did as well, that was 5 years ago.... if these gadjets work i might start doing a few again this year
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have a look My $ 20.00 chicken plucker Homemade (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg4nAKYoD3Y#) might need a 50 gall drum for geese
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Hi,I have seen them work on chickens and the also worked well on ducks,you have to scold them first,with ducks you have to add washing up liquid to the scolding water.From what I understand they go through a lot of the plucking fingers that are expensive.
The only problem with these machines is all that scolding you loose the quality of a dry plucked bird,there is also a problem with shelf life as the skin is basically now cooked.I would say these machines and scolding are fine if you want to mass process a load of young 7 or 8 week old broilers,which you just kill,pluck,gut then sell immediately or in the freezer.
But for big cockerels and turkeys I like to dry pluck them,then hang them for a week to 10 days before gutting then selling or eating.
I think as a goose is a to money bird its all about quality and that can only be acived with dry plucking,followed by waxing.I just haven't cracked how to do it correctly or quickly yet.
Graham.
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i was told by someone who knows, you need a baby burco boiler (buy cheap at car boot etc) an X large block or 2 of bees wax from a bee keeper.......... fill boiler up 1/2 to 2.3rds with water then the wax i think the wax floats,,, dunk the goose a few times to get a thick coat of wax cool and peel....reuse wax till to downy then filter it. i did my wax in a slow cooker then painted it on the goose it sort of worked but not easy.
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Hi,if you read my first post on this thread that is what I say,I have made a boiler holds 30 liters of water and floated 5kg of wax on the top.I fitted two kettle elements in the boiler as a heat source and controlled them through a PID thermal controller off a kiln linked through a solid state relay.I then set this to 80C.
I pulled out all the wing feathers by hand and then rough plucked them on a bingham dry plucker and then dipped them in the wax,but the most I could manage in a day was five geese even with all that equipment.I must be going wrong somewhere.
Graham.