DIY Chicken Plucker

Posted by Kate at 7:25 AM 

 

I know my track record is not great when it comes to delivering promised posts on certain topics. I'm trying to make amends this week. So today it's a post on the homemade chicken plucker that I used to help process my three layers last week.

The idea came from someone named RedneckPete, who posted about this invention, calling it the $6 chicken plucker. You can see a video of this plucker in action here. (Don't click either link if you're squeamish about such things.) I came across this last year, when I first anticipated slaughtering my older laying hens in late fall. I can't remember exactly what the materials cost me when I went shopping for this project, but it was more than $6. I'm sure it was less than $20 however. I bought a PVC endcap, a short length of small diameter all-thread, a package of six rubber bungee cords, and a few bolts and washers. I already had the Makita drill.


The way it works is that the S-hooks are removed from the bungee cords and the cords trimmed to leave about 3" of material attached to each end. Then holes are made evenly around the PVC endcap to take the rubber "fingers" from the bungee cords. The wide ends where the S-hooks attached anchor the rubber inside the endcap. The all-thread passes through a hole drilled at the top of the endcap and offers purchase and a good grip for the electric drill. The business ends of the fingers whirl around and strip the feathers from a scalded carcass before evisceration.


I found that this worked reasonably well during my first processing experience. I still had to pluck some feathers by hand. If I'd had another pair of hands to help, it might have been better. As it was, I had to duct tape the drill to a sawhorse and depress the trigger with one hand while I manipulated the chicken carcass with the other. The largest feathers on the wings easily resisted the homemade chicken plucker, as did the finest pin feathers. Most of the others came right out.

For the very small amount of slaughtering I'm likely to do from year to year, this simple plucker will suffice. If I had ambitions for raising my own broilers in larger numbers, I might consider the Whizbang plucker, which is far more complicated and expensive to build, but can handle three chickens at a time. Harvey Ussery wrote about building one of these, and he seemed quite pleased with the performance. The drill chicken plucker is obviously a quick and dirty contraption compared to the Whizbang. But since the low end estimates for building a Whizbang come in at $600 or so, I'll stick with the <$20 model for now.

 

Source:

http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com/2009/07/diy-chicken-plucker.html

 

Books Of Interest:

 

 

Which Wild Animals Are Safe to Eat in a Survival Situation?

                 

While securing shelter, administering first aid, signaling for help and performing a host of other chores rank as top priorities during an emergency, the first question that tends to pop out of most people's mouths is, "So what are we going to eat out here in the woods?"
A quick rule of thumb is that you can eat anything on land with fur or feathers, as long as it is properly prepared and cooked thoroughly to kill bacteria and other pathogens that would make us sick. That means mammals and birds are good to go, although palatability is never guaranteed.
Earlier this year, while teaching survival school, my classes and I ate two possums from my property. Both were fresh and slow-roasted over the open fire. The first possum tasted delicious. Had I been blindfolded, I would have sworn that it was pulled pork barbeque. The second possum, however, sucker-punched me in the mouth. I was all ready for more possum barbeque, but this one tasted like he had been cooked in a burning plastic garbage can. Not nice.
Bugs and reptiles don’t offer as much of an open menu. Numerous insects and their larvae are toxic to humans. Some reptiles and amphibians can be toxic as well. If we stick to fur and feathers, we are taking the guesswork out of the equation. The only feathered beast I would recommend that you avoid is the vulture. Its diet (rotten meat) leaves it tasting like its meals and keeps it pumped full of the worst bacteria. It's a bad sign that nothing eats a dead buzzard—not even other buzzards.
You can eat other scavengers, like crow and skunk, as long as the animal was healthy when it was killed, quickly field dressed and cooked well done.

The next time you are in a survival emergency with a few rounds of ammo to spare or some snare wire, think about scoring some furred or feathered food. And good luck catching a barbeque-flavored opossum. I promise, they are out there!
Calorie content (per 3.5 ounces) of some tasty wild game meats:
Bear: 259 cal.
Beaver: 212 cal.
Deer: 158 cal.
Dove: 219 cal.
Duck: 201 cal.
Goose: 305 cal.
Possum: 221 cal.
Quail: 234 cal.
Rabbit: 206 cal.
Raccoon: 255 cal.
Squirrel: 173 cal.
CC Image courtesy of shannonkringen on Flickr

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