Chicken Plucker – Home Made Less Than $10.00

I wish I had been the master mind behind this neat, cheap and effective chicken plucker. It Is not designed for plucking a lot of chickens at one time but looks like this thing will really do a good job for those of us that are only plucking a few chickens, turkeys, ducks or geese at a time.

It looks like he used 8 rubber bungee cords 8 inches long cut in half with the metal S hooks removed for the rubber picking fingers powered by a variable speed 3/8 inch electric hand drill.

Scalding your chicken before picking is ‘Required’. Heat a pot of water to 145 to 160 degrees. Holding your chicken by it’s feet, submerge your chicken in the hot water, pump up and down to insure hot water reaches the chickens skin. After about 15 or 20 seconds check your chicken by test pulling a wing feather or 2. They should pull out easily, if not scald about another 5 or 10 seconds and test again.

If your picking ducks or geese add about 1 table spoon of dish soap to your water, this will break down the water proofing oils in their feathers so the hot water can reach your birds skin.

How to make a $6.00 chicken plucker was posted in July 2006.

Video link I hope it works for you. Chicken Plucker in action

“I bought a PVC end cap (about $2.00) and drilled a 3/8” hole in the center, and installed a long carriage bolt I already had as the shaft. Then I drilled 3/8” holes all around the outside. I made the fingers out two bungie cords. (rubber straps with S hooks a both ends) I had a bunch around, but wanted to get the softest rubber I could, so I bought two long ones. (about $4.00) I cut the cord into three inch lengths, then cut the edge off both sides of each piece, except for a half an inch at the end. Then I pulled the fingers through the holes in the PVC cap, they couldn’t come out because of the half inch bump out at the end. The pictures will explain if the words don’t. Then I popped the shaft into my drill and tied the drill to the picnic table with bungie cords. A wire tie abound the trigger held it at a medium speed.

It plucks a scalded bird in about 45 seconds. It won’t pull the primary wing and tail feathers, and has trouble with the feathers along the leading edge of the wing, but works amazing for my purposes. I pluck the birds with the plucker, rinse it off and pull out the big feathers by hand. Total time is certainly less then 90 seconds a bird.”