Drill-Powered Duck Plucker

Drill-Powered Duck Plucker LIVESTOCK Miscellaneous 32-1-10 Dave White associates four-letter words with plucking ducks by hand. So when his company, Cajun Archery of Logan, Utah, had an opportunity to buy rights to The Plucker, he seized the chance. The Plucker is a 4-in. cast aluminum wheel that has sixteen 1-in. hard rubber fingers that are easy to replace ($12.99/set) by just popping them in. Any drill with at least 2,000 rpm's can be used to turn The Plucker. As each finger spins around it peels off feathers and most of the pinfeathers. "You can do a mallard in two minutes," White says. A video on his company's website shows how to hold the duck under the wheel, with the wheel spinning away. "It really works," White says. "This is an example of technology they use commercially; it's just a smaller consumer version." At $30 for the basic kit that runs off a drill, The Plucker is the least expensive on the market, White adds. Often customers upgrade to the $100 deluxe unit, which has a motor that can be hooked up by DC to a truck or ATV battery in the field or AC converter to use with electricity. The unit comes with a handy mounting board. "You learn and get better as you use it and get the feel of how to run the bird across it," White says. The Plucker works best on dry ducks, but also works when they're wet. It also works on geese but hasn't been widely tested yet on chickens. Many hunters like the idea of plucking ducks in the field to put the feathers back in the environment to be used for nesting material the next year, White says. The Plucker makes it easier to take off feathers and keep the skin intact, which helps ducks stay moister and taste better during roasting, White says. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Dave White, Cajun Archery, 708 West 1800 North, Logan, Utah 84321 (ph 435 752-9302; info @cajunarchery.com; www.theplucker.biz).

To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.