[suziequeue]

Has anybody built their own chicken plucking machine?

I have the plans for a "whizz-bang" machine from Herrick Kimbal.

Seems pretty straightforward.

Has anybody built one?

Any tips?

[Hermit]

I suppose it depends on how much you have to do but we have been there done that with homemade and this year with 17 geese 20 turkeys, umpteen cockerels and ducks we invested in a proper one and we did them all in a day!  Well worth the money ( and a sinew pull as well, so much easier).       
 We found the homemade too fast or uncrontolable with feathers everywhere and ended up with torn skin. The whizbang is the washing machine one I believe , that is one we did not do but have seen the videos.... would like to see a video of it doing a black plumed bird!

[Rosemary]

We decided that doing a couple of dozen birds a year, we'd just do them by hand. Looked at the whizz-bang, but it was too hard 

[hughesy]

I kill em, the wife plucks em. Works fine, no machiune needed. Please don't tell the wife there are plucking machines

[milly molly]

a friend who runs our local smallholders group built one, works a treat, just need to make sure u get the scaulding right and it leaves them bare. needs running water though so using it when its very frosty/cold can be problematic

Mandy

[JEP]

would intrested doing one are selves
if you do one & works well to get it ready for next Christmas
keep us posted

[cuckoo]

No - but I have one in the outhouse surplus to requirements if anyone is interested .... electrics safe as spent a fortune getting them sorted only never to get into using it - we are near Goole -  East Yorks

[suziequeue]

I posted about this ages ago and I thought I would update you on progress.

So - here's the project so far.

Costs are: drum - nil, wood - nil, screws and bolts £20 (for whole project)

So far I have measured the drum, marked it out and built the frame.

It's not quite perfection but I think it is good enough.

Tomorrow I plan to do the motor mounting board..... after that things get interesting.

[Dan]

Excellent, thanks for the update, looking good. 

We were looking at the Whizzbang plans but never went any further - if we were doing any sort of quantity we'd need to build something.

Are you using plans or making it up? 

[suziequeue]

I'm using the Whiz Bang plans. Very easy to follow - except it's all in 16ths of an inch so I'm having to convert the measurements all the time but no other problems really.

[Sandy]

Plucking can be sooooo sociable..I love plucking!!!

[suziequeue]

So - this project has sat in the workshop for over a year while we have been having the house rebuilt and then we've had such good weather - so been outside most weekends doing stuff. Now the weather has closed in a bit I have had a chance to make some progress.

I have completed the frame and the bearing boards, got the feather plate made and put the fingers  in. I have caulked the frame and now it needs painting and waterproofing. Then need to put the fingers in the drum and attach that.

We have at least three cockerels from this summer's hatching and we have finally got a wall mounted dispatcher so am getting closer and closer to processing our own chicken 

[suziequeue]

Well - the machine is finally finished - just in time to do our two and a friend's five. so we had a productive afternoon and got all seven done and plucked.


http://youtu.be/WIXvnRilUM0

[Bodger]

I find the plucking pretty easy and almost therapeutic, now if someone would invent a machine that sticks an artificial hand up a chickens 'harris' and guts it, then that I would be interested in.

[suziequeue]

Oh well - can't please all the people all the time. I'm very pleased with it