# ? on plucking



## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

Ok sorry for those of you who don't eat your animals. 
I can pluck a chicken bald in less than 2 min. I tried one year a goose, omg I finally made my DH skin it. Without buying one of those horrendously expensive featherman pluckers- what is the best way to do a duck?? Dh wants to do a few ducks this year, I know dip them in the scalding water (after dead of course), there are so many feathers and that fine downy type- eek -- ideas??


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## peggy (Aug 11, 2010)

I'd be interested in the answer to this.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

bumping up


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## sweetgoats (Oct 18, 2007)

SOrry, no help here. 

As a kid we raised so many birds that we had that huge plucker. I hated it.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

We usually do 25 chicks, butcher in groups of 12; which is still alot (at least for me). When you say a huge plucker, is it those feather man pluckers?


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## Stacykins (Mar 27, 2012)

You have to do things differently for waterfowl such as ducks and geese. Easiest is to just skin it, but you lose all that awesome duck and goose fat in the skin. When I cook a duck or goose, I save the fat for use in other cooking (in a jar in the freezer). 

Defeathering is done in two steps. First, you have to do a rough pluck of the feathers, and remove big feathers like the wing and tail feathers. This is to expose a lot of the down. Don't pluck away the down to the skin! You just want the down exposed. Why? Because you will be dipping the goose or duck in melted wax! You can buy 1 lb blocks of wax in the canning section of any store. Heat up a water bath, drop in the blocks of wax, and let them melt. You don't want the water boiling, but you want the wax liquidy and spread in a nice film. I'd really recommend doing the wax dip outside, too. 

Once the wax cools after you dip the bird, you simply peel it away, and the down and remaining feathers come off very cleanly. If skin is exposed when you wax dip, you'll be picking wax off the skin, kind of annoying.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

Wow, maybe that's where tarred and feathered came from . Anyway, so you don't do a water dunk at all, just the wax? Wow that means another big pot. We use the big turkey fryer pots over the propane stand thing.


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## Stacykins (Mar 27, 2012)

The pot will be mostly filled with water, with a layer of melted wax floating on top. As you dunk the bird deeper in the water, it'll be coated totally in wax.

This video may help:


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## sweetgoats (Oct 18, 2007)

WOW I have never heard as a Wax dunk. That is crazy.

As for the birds we did we would do about a 100 at a time. I HATED it.

All I remember is the plucker was about 5feet long, 4 feet wide and had the rubber tips on two drumbs so two people could do it at a time.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

Ohhh that makes sense! Thanks for the link. 
Sweet goats, wow that's crazy.


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## mjs500doo (Nov 24, 2012)

Yup we use wax here too. Normally for Canadian geese during hunting. Ducks we just peel out of their skin. Too tedious for me.

ETA: 
When we butcher we usually have a small fire going for feathers anyway, so sometimes if I feel ambitious and want skin, we just roll the bird above the flame to singe the "hair".


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## sweetgoats (Oct 18, 2007)

clearwtrbeach said:


> Ohhh that makes sense! Thanks for the link.
> Sweet goats, wow that's crazy.


 Yep, that is why I will not ever touch a bird again.

We raised every kind of bird you could think of. We would have about 800-1000 eggs to hatch. I HATED it and still do to this day.

I will not even be around at all if I know someone is going to butcher a bird.


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## clearwtrbeach (May 10, 2012)

mjs- I wouldn't have even thought about that- hmm another idea in worse case scenario.
Lori- you were probably younger living with parents ?? My mom hates fish! because her dad use to always take her fishing. I found my kids don't care to mess with dogs, well 1 our of 4 does, since I showed dogs for so long.


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