Customer Reviews

Anyone Can Build a Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When you buy this book and build this chicken plucker, your life will never be the same when processing chickens! We were certain that this plucker would be better than hand picking feathers. What was so shocking was that this plucker will COMPLETELY pluck two chickens in less than 30 seconds...leaving maybe one or two pinfeathers only! We never expected this, and when we first saw ours in action, it was shocking! No torn skin. You throw two birds in whole after bleedout, and and pull out two naked birds. We bought most of our parts new and building it cost us about $300--an excellent investment!
Paul & Linda Hawley
MillenialEve.com
Millenial Eve Organics LLC
Washington State

We purchased this book, followed the plans, built the plucker. It works great. So far we have used it for turkeys. We plan to use it for broilers this spring and it should work wonderfully after seeing how it did with the turkeys.

This book is done in a very easy, simple to follow format. I built this machine in less that two days. The best thing is that it really works just as he said that it would. It has saved us many, many hours of work! What a great book.

After add all the part in my shopping cart .. WoW !! almost $700 for this DIY ... was too expensive .
Whizbang Plucker Parts ( new )

All new part !! $ 704 + 4 - 5 hrs !!!!

HDPE plate $178
SHAFT $54
IDLER ARM HARDWARE KIT $34
16" PULLEY $54
HDPE TUB PLASTIC $45
Electric Motor 3/4 HP $95
Whizbang Plucker book $19
bore Drive Pulley $14
150 Rubber Plucker Fingers (Item #C-25) $105
Hardware, Lag/Carriage Bolts $22
Lumber: 2x4s, 2x6s $15
Drive Belt, 63 $12
Electrical Materials including Switch, Weathertite box, Romex cable $ 30
Two 1" Bore Pillow Block Bearings $20 ( ebay )
Two 10" diameter wheels $19


If use parts still will cost over $300 to $380

it is your call now !!!!

I built this plucker last year and have now used it for several hundred birds including large turkeys. I purchased the welded shaft, featherplate, fingers and flywheel from the author and I can say without a doubt, his parts are of the highest quality! Even if you have no used parts laying around, the total cost and quality of this unit beats any pre-built, mass-produced plucker. It is powerful and efficient.

To save money, buy your hardware lag screws, etc at a Tractor Supply. They sell by the pound and that will save you big $$$ over using Home Depot or Lowe's. Belts, pulleys and pillow block bearings can also be found on line for very cheap. One of the reviewers here quoted prices at least twice as expensive as I found.

Good luck and happy plucking!

I bought this book after hearing about it all over the internet. This truly is an ALL-AMERICAN plucker. Honestly, when I leave work in the evening, the first thing on my mind is how many chiiieeeckens I'll be plucking away at night!!!!!

I can't recommend it enough. This chicken plucker book is a true page turner. I was so excited to get my plucking on that I didn't even read the last two chapters. When I started building it, it was just my passion for plucking that got me through until the end.
Props to the author, and BIG props to my homie for recommending it to me.

PLKR - 4 - LIFE!

I'm the author of this book and I'd like to post the following reader (and plucker-builder) comments found on a couple of Yahoo discussion groups about the book and the Whizbang Plucker. This is just a sampling of many positive comments about the book......

"this was our first year using a tub-style plucker.  In the past, we borrowed a neighbor's mechanical plucker that is on a stand and requires that you hold the bird while you pluck it.  I bought Herrick Kimball's "Whizbang Chicken Plucker" book and built my own.  Wow, what a difference! I was able to scald and pluck two chickens at a time.  With just my wife and myself working, we were able to do 125 chickens in one day."------------Dave L.
PasturePoultry Yahoo group message #16266

"I just got Herrick Kimballs "Anyone Can Build a Tub Style Mechanical Plucker" book. It is very well written and looks like the plucker would go together fairly easily"---------------"clodhopper 18844"
PasturePoultry Yahoo group message #13987

"I second the recommendation for Herrick Kimball's book and building your own plucker. We've successfully built our own and it works great!"-------------------Carrie
PasturePoultry Yahoo group message #13995

"I modified the plans somewhat using materials I had onhand or available......my friend borrowed it yesterday and reported that it is FANTASTIC....can't wait to use it to process our birds."---------------------"cheeky-cowboy-eh"
Whizbangchickenpluckers Yahoo group message #793

"just wanted to give an update on how my plucker did on its first batch of birds, we did 54 birds today, the plucker worked great......thanks Herrick for the design, we would still be plucking if we hadnt found your book, thanks again"---------------------------John
Whizbangchickenpluckers Yahoo group Message #588

"Thank you, Herrick, for putting together a readable, funny and comprehensive book on how to build a tub style picker that works like a dream."-------------------Eric
Whizbangchickenplucker's Yahoo group message #121

"We do pheasant,quail,pigeon,chickens,turkey,ducksand geese with our plucker. The smaller the bird the more per run, up to 12 pigeons at a time........We will do on avg 40 to 50 muscovy ducks per weekend for our Asian customers......... I can not thank Herrick enough for sharing his book on how to build a plucker."----------------Lewis
Whizbangchickenpluckers Yahoo group message #863

My husband built this for me last year using the plans in the book and I processed 91 chickens. The plans were relatively easy to follow but it does take quite a bit of time to put it all together. We had no parts laying around so everything had to be bought new and the cost was about $700. However, if you bought a readymade plucker of this size and power, you would have to pay about twice that much (a local friend bought a readymade one which cost over $1200 PLUS shipping).

If you have a lot of hardware, lumber, a plastic barrel and an old motor laying around your cost will be much less. The metal connecting hardware (lag bolts, screws etc) cost around $100 alone. Rather than buying the working parts from several places online and paying separate shipping I just bought everything I could direct from the author -- fingers, tub plastic, bottom plate and rod predrilled and ready to assemble, flywheel.

Putting in the fingers, especially in the bottom plate, can be difficult. We soaked them in hot, soapy water and used channel-lock pliers to pull them through. Grasp the finger and brace the top of the plier head on the plate pulling it sideways, then get a grip further down the finger and do the same in the opposite direction, until they pop into place.

We put a 1hp motor in (that itself was over $200) instead of the 3/4hp the book recommends but it still bogged down on a large turkey -- when I say large I mean about 40 lbs! For chickens it worked fantastic. I process alone so could only scald and pluck two at a time. 30 seconds or so and they were plucked naked except for occasionally a few feathers still hanging on to the wingtips, tail or in the "armpits". If you leave them in too long the fingers will start to beat the skin off... I may have scalded them too long though.

I plan to raise all of our family's meat birds from now on so I am very happy to have this machine, because plucking is the butchering chore I hated the most. I also bought the author's scalder book but that project will have to wait a few years. Meanwhile I just use a turkey fryer pot to scald in.

Followed the instructions and built my chicken plucker with sucess. Have been using it for a couple years now with no problems. LOVE IT!

This is a great resource for how to build your own poultry plucker. Used it as a guide to build my own. Did have to make some modifications to the book's design due to availability of parts. You need to have some mechanical/builder background to build one of these, but this book does supply great ideas and resources. My plucker works great!