The Whizbang Plucker Story

Dateline: 20 September 2006

I’ve been blogging here for over a year now and, though it has been mentioned, I have never dedicated an entire blog entry to telling you all about the chicken plucker I developed and the plucker planbook I wrote. So I guess it’s about time, especially since I’ve finally figured out how to take and post pictures to the internet. Let me begin with the end product. This next picture shows me with a couple of defeathered fowls fresh from the plucker...

This next picture shows me again. This time I’m carrying two just-scalded birds to the plucker. That tub-plucker is the original Whizbang. It is 5 years old. I’ve used it many times and I’ve loaned it to friends many times and it works as good as the day I made it.

And this next picture shows two birds in the tub, right after plucking. Notice the many black rubber fingers. They do the work of picking the feathers off the birds so you don’t have to. There is a round plate (the “featherplate”) at the bottom of the tub that spins around and tumbles the birds.

Now, without further ado, I’ll tell you the Whizbang story.....

The Ecstasy And The Agony 

Of Raising Meat Birds

Eight years ago my wife and I decided to try raising our own chickens on pasture. We were motivated to do this by a strong desire to have meat that was as healthful and flavorful as it could possibly be.

So I ordered 25 day-old Cornish meat birds from a hatchery. We raised those cute little chicks into  not-so-cute, but wonderfully plump, broilers. We found that being small-scale chicken “farmers” was easy to do and a lot of fun. Then it came time to “process” the fatted fowls.

“Fun” is not a word I would use to describe that first experience of butchering poultry.

The worst part of it was, by far, hand-plucking all those steaming-wet, stinking feathers (after scalding the birds). Hand-plucking was messy. Hand-plucking was tedious. Hand-plucking was time consuming. Hand-plucking was, in short, nasty, discouraging work. There had to be a better way.

There Is A Better Way....

No sane person enjoys hand-plucking chickens. That being the case, machines have been developed to do the onerous task. There are currently two different types of plucking machines on the market.

One type of machine is the tabletop plucker. It consists of a rotating drum studded with rubber picker fingers. A flat table is positioned in front of the drum. To use a tabletop plucker, you hold your scalded bird up to the spinning fingers and manually move it around while the fingers flail the feathers off.

Once you become skilled at using a tabletop plucker, you can pluck one chicken about every 30 seconds. This is certainly an improvement over hand-plucking but there are several drawbacks to these machines. 1) You can only pluck one bird at a time 2) you still have to get your hands into the work 3) it takes practice to do a good and fast job 4) if you don’t hold onto your bird tight, the fingers will yank that critter right out of your hands.  

Here Is The Absolute Best Way 

To Pluck Chickens!

Tabletop pluckers are okay but they can’t begin to compare to tub-style pluckers. A tub plucker consists of a tub that you simply drop one or more scalded birds into. At the bottom of the tub is a round “featherplate,” studded with rubber plucker fingers. The plate spins, the birds tumble around. In about 15 seconds the chickens are bare naked and squeaky clean. That’s right, I said 15 seconds!

Nothing could be easier (and more fun) than dropping your scalded critters into a tub and watching the machine do all the dirty work. If you’ve never seen a tub plucker in action, this may all sound too good to be true. If that’s the case, let me take a moment to assure you that it is an absolute fact.

The secret to getting the best pick is to properly scald the birds. Once that is done (and it isn’t hard to do) the machine will remove virtually every feather, including pin feathers. There will usually be a couple odd stubs remaining, and maybe a large feather or two will be left on their tail or wing tips. Such feathers can be pulled right out in no time at all. The skin does not break when plucking (unless your scald is too hot) and bruising never occurs.

When I first saw a tub plucker in action, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I knew I had to have one.

The Only Problem With Tub Pluckers

Ready-made tub pluckers are expensive. The cheapest machine I could find at the time was around $2,000. That was a bit high for this thrifty, part-time chicken farmer to justify.

I Create The Whizbang Plucker

Necessity is the mother of invention. And so is poverty.  Having seen a tub-plucker up close and personal, I realized they are really very basic machines. In fact, they are so basic that I figured I could just make one myself and thereby save myself a bundle of money.

The plucker wasn’t quite as easy to develop as I thought it would be. I had to work several months building and refining my prototype plucker until it functioned like those expensive, already-made units. But when I was finished, the device worked so doggone good that I gave it a special name: The Whizbang Plucker. Whizbang is a dictionary word that means, conspicuous for speed, excellence, or startling effect. It is a perfectly appropriate name.

Better yet, I spent less than $500 on parts to build my Whizbang. That was using all new parts. If I had, for example, a used motor that would have worked, the final cost would have been less than $400.

But I Did Not Invent The Plucker

Some people mistakenly believe I invented the tub-style chicken plucker. What I actually did was figure out a simple design for making a sturdy and effective plucker using basic materials like 2x4 lumber and a recycled plastic 55 gallon drum. While a few other innovative backyard builders around the country had cobbled together their own homemade units, I was the first to come up with an attractive, standardized, easy-to-build plan.

Then I Write The Book

I figured there must be a lot of other people like me out there— people who needed a simple, inexpensive, yet well-built and effective, plucker.  So it was with that in mind that I wrote the Whizbang Plucker Planbook. It is officially titled, Anyone Can Build A Tub-Style Mechanical Chicken Plucker.  

The book is now in its fifth printing. It has 60 pages and 60 drawings. It tells you EVERYTHING you need to know to build your own Whizbang plucker. Everything.

Yes, You Can Build A Whizbang!!

You don’t need to be an engineer to understand my plans and put together your own Whizbang plucking machine. And you don’t have to be a welder or machinist either. If you have basic carpentry tools and skills, you can do it.

The book also provides you with information about where to get all the needed components for your plucker. Once you’ve rounded up all the parts, you should be able to have your Whizbang assembled and working in a weekend.

You’ll find the Whizbang is a dependable unit. And since it is so simple in design, very little can go wrong with it. But if, perchance, something does go wrong, you’ll be able to fix it because, after all, you will have built it!

If properly cared for, your Whizbang will dependably pluck thousands of birds for years to come. And it will pluck chickens for all your chicken farming friends and relatives too! Some people even rent their Whizbang pluckers out.

Chickens ... And Beyond!

The Whizbang Plucker will pluck turkeys, ducks and geese too. It will pluck turkeys almost as well as chickens. It does ducks fairly well. Geese are more of a challenge. But ducks and geese do not pick as well as chickens and turkeys in any mechanical plucker. This isn’t to say they don’t pluck well, they just don’t pluck AS well.

Welcome To 

The Whizbang Revolution

Homemade Whizbang Pluckers are now being used by backyard and small-farm poultry producers all across the United States. They are also in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, South America, and Canada. The planbook has been featured in BackHome magazine, Countryside magazine, Small Farm Today magazine, Mother Earth News, Farm Show, APPA GRIT!, NOFA NY, MOFGA, and several other publications.

The Yahoo discussion group, WhizbangChickenPluckers, has over 1,400 members. The group is free to join and, once there, you can see photos of several homemade whizbang-inspired pluckers from across the United States. You can also read A LOT of positive Whizbang feedback from readers and pluckerbuilders.  The ongoing discussion (and archived past discussion) is a rich resource of information on poultry processing in general and pluckermaking in particular. Here’s a link to the group.

Here’s What Some People Are Saying...

“Just a short note. I finally finished up our chicken plucker and on the 4th of July some friends came over to help us inaugurate it. We killed and scalded the first two birds, set them in the plucker, and I held my breath as I hit the switch. Total success! Feathers flying off, skin emerging. Fifteen to twenty seconds and we had naked birds ready to be eviscerated.

My friends, including a couple of engineers, were duly impressed. I (only half-jokingly) call it one of the Seven Mechanical Wonders of the World. Excellent design. Thanks for the hard work and clear writing and drawings in your book. We only did 8 or 9 birds that day, as the main purpose was celebration, but it took the time that one or two did in the old days.”

J. Dietzel
California

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“My Whizbang plucker processed 125 chickens this summer and I couldn’t be happier with the results.”

K. Jablinskey
Michigan

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“This is a very late thank you for your plans. I built your chicken plucker over a year ago and am very happy with it. I lend it out to several other backyarders and all really love it. The first time we turned it on we had three broilers in there and we started laughing so hard we couldn’t switch it off. It was the best chicken wrestling match we had ever seen. Think we could probably sell tickets. Does a great job and all the parts we purchased directly from you were excellent and saved us money too. Many thanks.”

C. Wilson
Connecticut

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“My plucker works just the way you said it would. It’s a real WHIZBANG!”

B. Rieger
Montana

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“We did 225 chickens, 55 ducks, and 12 turkeys this year. It wouldn’t have been possible if not for the Whizbang. THANKS!!!!!”

C. Ewer
Wisconsin

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“Whiz Bang Chicken Plucker became operational today. Fifteen seconds later I was looking at three six-pounders with no feathers. My hat is off to you sir.”

D.A. Boyle
(unknown location)

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“I just had to write to tell you that my plucker works great! The plucker was a project for my 12-year-old son to complete.... Thank you SO MUCH for writing this book! It was so much fun to read, but not half as much fun as it was watching the chickens getting plucked. Your book made a chore into a fun experience.

D. Hogan
(unknown location)

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The above unsolicited quotations are a very small sampling of the MANY positive responses I’ve received from people who have used the Whizbang planbook to build their own plucker.

Here’s How To Buy A Copy Of The Book
The Whizbang Plucker Planbook is available from the following places...

Whizbang Books
Cumberland Books
BackHome magazine
Murray McMurray Hatchery
Stromberg’s Hatchery
Back 40 Books
Meyer Hatchery
Mother Earth News

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P.S. If you have not yet read the following poultry-related essays, I invite you to do so:

Frequently Asked Questions About The Whizbang Plucker

The Best Place to Buy Plucker Fingers

Introducing My Deluxe Homemade Chicken Scalder

Backyard Poultry Processing With My 11-year-Old Son

My Chicken Plucker Parts Business

How To Butcher A Chicken

Getting Started With Turkeys

Turkeys in Tractors & Comfrey For Feed

Talkin’ Bout My Chicken Tractors

Talkin' Bout My Chicken Tractor (Part 2)

FREE Chicken Feed