by Herrick Kimball
60pp., 8.5" x 11" paperback
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Probably the most intimidating part of raising your own chickens is slaughtering them, and probably the most difficult part of slaughtering chickens is plucking them clean of feathers. So a mechanical chicken plucker can be a blessing for the budding backyard chicken farmer. But the cost of off-the-shelf commercial models is prohibitive.
Herrick Kimball took this problem as a challenge, and the result is the Whizbang Chicken Plucker, a relatively inexpensive device that can be built by anyone patient enough to follow Herrick's carefully laid out instructions. The down-to-earth prose and clear and detailed line drawings will guide you through every step of the way to success.
Sample page with diagram.
From the back cover:
World record holder Ernest Hausen of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, could hand-pick the feathers off a chicken in 4.4 seconds, but that was 63 years ago and he was the best. These days anyone with a flock of birds to process needs a mechanical feather plucker (also known as a "picker").
The best mechanical picking machines are the tub-style units. Everyone with a chicken to pluck who has seen a tub plucker in action wants one, and for good reason. To use a tub plucker, you simply drop one or more scalded birds into the tub, turn it on, and watch the critters spin around while their feathers disappear. In about 15 seconds, they're done. Virtually every feather (pinfeathers, too!) will be missing from the chicken's hide and, amazingly, the bird will not be harmed. It takes no skill and almost no effort to use a tub plucker. Nothing could be easier.
The only drawback to tub pickers is that they're expensive. Prices for ready-made machines typically start at around $2000, and go up from there. That's too steep for most home and small-farm operations, and that's what prompted pastured poultry producer Herrick Kimball to build his own tub plucker. After several months of tinkering and testing, Kimball developed a simple plucker design that went together easily and worked remarkably well. In fact, the device worked so well, Kimball named it the Whizbang Plucker. Whizbang is a dictionary word that means "conspicuous for speed, excellence, or startling effect."
This book tells you everything you need to know to easily build your own inexpensive Whizbang Plucker. Your Whizbang will enable you to pick'm clean, pick'm fast, and pick'm easy. Whizbang pluckers make feather plucking fun!
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