[muntjac]

for those of you with a few birds to do , we use one of these

http://www.binghampluckers.com/catalog.htm

[GrannieAnnie]

Mmmmm, are they any god Karl?  Brian keeps on about getting a plucking machine when he gets his big farm and has thousands of birds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      In the meantime, he can carry on using his fingers!!!!

Hey want to hear a funny story??? (Not rude John!!!)  When I worked in London, Brian used to grow turkeys on a small scale, and most of them I sold at work.  (Actually I can turn this into 2 funny stories!!!!)  One day I was talking to a couple of the girls and saying that Brian was thinking of buying a small plucking machine to help him out.  One of the girls asked how they worked.  Well I said. it has these revolving rubber type flaps (anyway that's what they looked like) and you hold the bird by its legs, lower it in the machine and the revolving flaps take the feathers off.  (Now do't laugh at me Karl, because I've not actually seen one of these machines for real)  Then one of the other girls said, Awww poor birds, doesn't it hurt them??    I said silly *** they're dead!!!!!!

Then this leads on to my other funny story.  The week before Christmas on this particular year, I managed to take 2 turkeys in each day, (considering my journey to work took over 2 hours at that time on 3 different trains!!), but on the last day, I had to take 3 in, so they were all wrapped up with their little ice packs to keep them nice and cold, inside my suitcase on wheels!  Well I dragged this 66lb suitcase off the tube at Euston Square and a man came up to me and said that looks heavy, can I help you up the stairs with it?  (no escalators there you see).  Thank you I said.  When we got to the top of the stairs, he said that IS heavy, what have you got in there?  3 20lb turkeys I replied  Well, you didn't see him for the dust.  He ran out of that station, probably thought I was mad!!!!! lol

Well, I probably was carting 3 20lb turkeys around London in a suitcase!!!!

[muntjac]

i will tell you this it saves me my fingers and loads time , when we did a couple hundred turkeys we payed the students £ 5  a bird for plucking them and it took hours .i can do one on the machine in 15 mins  and a dang site easier .pheasants im doing in 3 mins .ducks are the hardest to do with the down but still a lot quicker than by hand .i can sit down on my shoe shine stool and do them all day in comfort .....do not stand .make sure you get plenty of large hessian sacks and ur sorted ,if you do get to do a load of ducks pick the wing featehrs and large tail feathers out by hand and save the rest find a pilow or duvet stuffer i made an extra £3 a sack on mine

[GrannieAnnie]

Thanks Karl.  Do you have to clean the feathers if you sell them to a pillow stuffer, or do they do it themselves?  I don't think we've got any around here.

[muntjac]

no i just drop them off and she washes them herself in a old top loading drum washer , she drainms them on a wire rack and then tumble dries them ,i have one the pillows on my bed and they are great .

[John]

Still can't work out why the chap ran away from your turkey suitcase, Annie.    They're a strange lot in that there London.

[GrannieAnnie]

It wasn't the suitcase he ran away from John, it was me!!  Can you imagine being in the middle of London and being told by some strange woman that the suitcase you had carried up the stairs for her was full of dead turkeys???  I bet he dined out on that story for a while!!!!! lol

[John]

I suppose it was a bit surreal ....

I had a moggy who loved plucking birds, managed to fill the lounge with feathers. Never found much else apart from feathers though.. strange that

[shaun]

karl when your using your plucker do you put your hair in a hair net,i'm just thinking health and safety and all that  

[milkman]

He should probably be wearing a beard guard thingy as well...

[John]

And lycra no doubt, hey Shaun  

[shaun]

ive got a vision of karl wearing a lycra all in one body suit with a pair of fish-net stockings over his head plucking a chicken  
dont knock it till youve tried it  

[Zak the Rabbit]

ive tried it, its rubbish, i couldnt see past the gusset

[Zak the Rabbit]

sorry, you said stockings, i was using tights

surely if he's using stockings he only needs one, not a pair?

[shaun]

he needs to put 2 on incase one falls off