KITCHENER Heavy Duty Stainless Steel Chicken Plucker De-Feather w/ Soft Fingers

Why did you pick this product vs others?:This worked perfectly! Yup, it vibrated, the on/off switch is inconveniently located, it's a bit thin. But, it worked flawlessly to pluck 15 birds today. Super fast, maybe 30 seconds per bird, and it plucked them clean! No bruising, no damage to the meat. Absolutely recommend this product! I was waiting to see how processing day went, and with these results, I'll be doing 40 birds next year. Very glad I didn't rent a plucker!

We processed 150 chickens this year using this plucker. Overall the plucker did a great job, I only have a few small complaints and thoughts1. It can handle 2 pretty good sized birds without struggling. In fact, it seemed to perform better in some ways with 2 carcasses bouncing around inside the drum. With only one carcass, the bird would occasionally get stuck in one spot with the machine still running, which doesn't remove any additional feathers and risks tearing the skin. It is not a big deal at all to simply poke the chicken with your hand to get it moving again, but worth mentioning.2. The motor will only turn on if you have attached the included contact switch to the bottom of the drum. We have had no issues yet, but I have noticed the cord tends to get beat on a little. Admittedly I don't treat it like a delicate flower, but I do wish the cord was a little more robust, or out of the way.3. We processed both the standard Cornish X, and a slower growing Red Ranger variety. The plucker cleaned our Cornish Cross beautifully, but it struggled a little with the Red Rangers. Their feathers were denser and longer, and tended to jam up the drum unless we were vigilant about running water through every couple of birds. The plucker also tends to leave feathers on the tail and "elbow" in both bird varieties. I think that is probably normal for a non-commercial machine, so just be prepared do a tiny bit of post-pluck inspection. The quality of the plucking also improved exponentially as we learned how to scald more effectively.4. The wheels tend to fall off. I lost one hitch pin and the other wheel shook loose while I was trying to replace the first. Irritating, but only a problem when moving the machine.I want to note that these are all VERY minor complaints. Overall I am very satisfied with this plucker and would happily recommend it to just about everyone. It should be noted that we really put it to the test with 150 birds, more than half of them Red Rangers with very dense feathers. We were also first-timers to the whole process in general. We were able to kill 50 chickens on the final day, and the plucker was absolutely not holding us back. For anyone processing a flock, this will absolutely get the job done.

The plucker worked well. Most of the feathers plucked most of the time. It mangled a few birds by ripping off their heads and breaking legs and wings. A few birds had ripped skin as well. It was still worth it to have feather free birds in 30 seconds each, though.

First, the good: the plucker has wheels that allow for easy movement. There are plenty of "fingers" in the tub and on the spin plate to get the job done, and the job is done very well. It took maybe a minute or so to fully pluck a bird. I was doing one at a time, as it was just me doing all the processing, and there were very few feathers I had to pull after giving the birds a tumble. I suspect if I'd done two birds at a time, even those feathers would have been removed. I found the feet tended to get caught up in the fingers in the tub, so I removed the feet after scalding and before putting the bird in the plucker.The bad: one, the description lists this with a "Integrated irrigation ring, with standard garden hose connector". It does NOT have this feature. You'll need to use a hose to spray the birds while they are tumbling. In addition, I ran into the same problem quite a number of other reviewers encountered: it would not power on, despite everything being set up correctly. I contacted the seller, indicating I'd disassembled and then reassembled the thing, as well as ensuring the proximity switch was seated properly. Their support wrote me back, telling me to make sure the arrows were aligned and that the proximity switch was connected - things I'd already told them was the case, and even sent them a picture (that was better than the one they sent me) showing the switch correctly in place. It is a little annoying to have this sort of response, but the guy was polite, and the response relatively quick. The legs really need better bolts, as the legs wobble, and this allows the plucker to "walk" when it's tumbling birds.I disassembled the thing again, and had a look at the proximity switch and tub, lined them up and it felt like the magnetic connection wasn't very strong: there was about a 2mm space between the top of the switch and the bottom of the tub connector. I thought about just drilling up the screw holes in the connector a little to force it to sit higher, but then had a better idea: I have a bunch of tiny, circular magnets, ranging in size from 2mm to 10mm. I grabbed a 2mm magnet, slapped it on top of the proximity switch, and voila! The plucker powered on and spun.If you're going to be processing a lot of birds, this is a good investment at a reasonable price, and this product works very well to get the birds plucked quickly, taking off a ton of time in the processing. It can be a bit hard to clean, as some feathers can get caught up in and wrapped around the base of the fingers, but dealing with those is a pretty good tradeoff versus having to pluck by hand.Overall: recommended.

This plucker works really well. Makes processing chickens much easier and faster