**ucking help needed !

The asterisks are for P & L.  

I am getting cheesed off with plucking birds. Have tried dipping them in very hot water first or plucking them immediately but either way i can get most of the feathers off in a 5 to 10 minutes but it takes ages to get them all of,f usually in excess of 30 mins and longer on a second bird  :evil:
Anyone got any advice.

leave the poor b*ggers alone..... :roll:

how would you feel if a big giant chook came along and plucked you??    

i hope your putting woolly jumpers on all those poor naked chickens

awww nooooo..... you're all at it........

Pushrod, Brian said you did bleed them first didn't you?  or could be why your having trouble with the plucking!

When I worked in London I was telling someone about the plucking machine Brian wanted to buy for the turkeys and how it worked.

Oh poor little things she said, doesn't it hurt them??

No, I replied, they are DEAD!!!!!!  oh yeah she said sheepishly!!!!

I hang them usually for 20 hours before i pluck them but that is just because i tend to dispatch them late at night. I was told by a butcher that i shouldn't really be hanging them with their feathers on as this keeps them warmer and increases the chance of bacterial infection - don't know if it's true or not, but sounded sensible.

It's not the little hairs that are the problem - i have a blow torch for them - its the shorter feathers. On reflection it might be partly because i think they have been moulting and so have had new feathers coming through, but even so it still takes me ages. Last night it took me over an hour to dunk in hot water, pluck, take the sinews out of the legs, clean, quarter and bag for the freezer.

Yes Ann these are the JA757's from spilsby only half of them left now though. Did you see that i updated the original thread last week HERE. Yes i do let them bleed, does that make much of a difference?
I don't envy your Brian - 19 chickens  :shock:  that would kill me off !

I did phone couple of poultry places to see if i could pay for my dead birds to be machine plucked but i think there are probs with bio-security for the big companies.
Anyone know of a friendly farmer with a de-feathering machine or one for sale going cheep [ ] I think i will have to look on ebay