The past two years, we have traded the use of a chicken plucker for the use of our thermostatically controlled scalder with friends of ours. This year, with both of our farms growing more chickens, we knew we needed our own plucker.
Hubby is a machinist by trade and knew he could make it from the plans. The Whizbang plucker is a wonderful plucker designed by Herrick Kimball. You can find his wonderful small farm inventions HERE. But first Hubby checked eBay and found the most difficult parts to make (the aluminum plate with all the holes precisely drilled and machined, the tub with the holes drilled precisely and the two pulleys) in a kit. What a find! Although Hubby COULD do it all on his own, it wasn't worth his time to spend making one the first time.
That's one thing we are passionate about, what is a good use of our time.
Hubby put together this plucker in a couple of days of off and on work. We used wood from our wood pile and a motor he took off a grain cleaner. We did have to purchase a "wet environment" switch.
We used it on Saturday to process 61 birds.
With a bit of adjustment when the belt slid off, the plucker worked great!!
(Stay tuned for my garden photos, I'm still working on it!)
Awesome job - it looks great, glad it worked well!
ReplyDeleteWhat did you use for the bottom plate?
ReplyDeleteIt's an aluminum plate that came pre-drilled with the kit we bought on eBay. Even though my husband is a machinst and could have made it, he ran the numbers (he ALWAYS runs the numbers) and it was cheaper to buy it pre-drilled than to measure and machine it himself.
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