Automatic pluckers

[sumpnz]

Shop vac is a must.  You must also have the right plucker fingers or they will tear up the skin.  Once you get it set right, they are money, I can pluck a duck bare with no pin feathers in 1-2 minutes.  Even if I am breasting it, I will do that to get the feathers out of the way and be able to keep the skin on.

What fingers do you like for duck vs goose vs chickens vs turkeys? 

[Stein]

I bought fingers marked specifically for ducks.  I tried a couple of chicken fingers and they tore the skin even if I cut them in half lengthwise.  The duck fingers are short and very soft and flexible.

Wet ducks are fine, they actually make less of a mess.  I pluck and then take the shop vac for a little clean up of the few feathers that get away.  It makes less of a mess than hand plucking but a bit more than if you just rip the breast meat out without any plucking.

[ctwiggs1]

I made one for pretty cheap using an e-bay motor, my own head and commercial fingers.  A plywood box with shop vac works pretty good.  I can clean them in the garage with minimal cleanup.

@Stein got pics?  I'd be curious as to how to build this thing.

Curtis

[Stein]

I'll take some next time I use it, hopefully soon.  I bought a motor off of ebay, a coupler threaded shaft thing to a pvc cap and then the rest was homebrew using stuff I had laying around.  The only hard part was figuring out the shape and size of the box so the feathers were sucked up.  If I had to do it again, I would at least buy this shroud as that is actually the most difficult thing to get right:

http://thefowlplucker.com/order-now/

They also sell the right fingers, I can't remember if I bought from that site or somewhere else, but mine look exactly the same.

I used his motor specs to find one on eBay with roughly the same speed.