HOW TO SCALD AND DEFEATHER POULTRY WITH A PLUCKER MACHINE?

SCALDING TEMPERATURE FOR CHICKENS AND OTHER POULTRY. STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS.

Have you bought our chicken plucker machine or made it yourself? This is great news, because now you will save a lot of time and energy! It remains only to figure out how to properly prepare your poultry for machine plucking.

In this short article, we will share our experience with you and give you the professional advice on how get a good plucking result, good quality of meat and good look of the skin. You will find out:

1. Tips on how to prepare a bird.
2. Why after slaughter no interruptions are acceptable?
3. What are the important rules to follow to achieve the best plucking result and good look of the poultry skin?
4. What king of chicken scalder to choose and how to use it right?
5. Scalding temperature for chickens, quails and other poultry.
6. How to use a plucker machine right?
7. 

There are several rules, if followed, you will get a high-quality plucked bird. For example, when you plucked a bird by hand, the scalding process did not require much attention. Often the bird was simply thrown into boiling water. It is important to know that for defeathering birds on a plucker machine, this is unacceptable, because after plucking there will be no skin left on your poultry. For a different type of bird, whether it is a quail, chicken, broiler, duck, goose or turkey, the scalding temperature will be different and every degree is important here.

 Plucking process is divided into three stages:

– slaughter of poultry;

– scalding;

– defeathering.

All these stages from beginning to end must be effectuated without breaks or interruptions!

Slaughter

Before starting slaughter, water for scalding must be already heated (scalding process will be described below).

After beheading a poultry, put it into the killing cone with a hole on the bottom part. Blood must flow down during 1-2 minutes.

While the blood is draining, it is necessary to cut off bird legs. This is important because during a random rotation in a centrifuge, claws will damage the skin. Cut off the legs at the joint. If you cut at the bone, the edge will be too sharp and can tear the skin off as well. If you use poultry plucker drill attachment – leave the legs whole. After the blood has sunk and the legs have been cut off, begin the scalding right away. Any delay will affect the result. The more you wait, the colder is the bird, the harder it will be to remove the feather.

Professional Processing chicken-plucker-machine

Scalding

If several birds are plucked at the same time, then all of these birds must be scalded at the same time as well.

Poultry scalder must be big enough to keep the water temperature on the same level after you put a bird inside (for chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys: 60-150 liters, for one chicken – at least 30 liters. For quails: 10-30 liters, for one quail – 10 liters.) For regular work, we recommend to make or buy a scalder machine with automatic heating.

While scalding, move/stir the poultry in the water for uniform scalding from all sides.

Scalding ducks and geese require additional steps. Since the feather of the waterfowl is covered with fat, water itself will not get under it. When scalding ducks and geese, ruffle the feather of a bird under water with your hands. In order to protect your hands, use 2 types of gloves at the same time: put durable rubber gloves on top of ordinary garden gloves.

In case of scalding quails, for your comfort and in order to speed up the scalding process, it is recommended to use a specially made sieve or an aluminum bowl with holes for water drainage. When using the proposed sieve or bowl, after 40 seconds, all quails can be simultaneously pulled out of the scalder machine.

The given temperature and time conditions are initially recommended. Experience in industrial poultry farms has shown that the retention of feathers The given temperature and time conditions are initially recommended. Experience in industrial poultry farms has shown that the retention of feathers in birds depends on the age of the bird, feed, climate and other factors. Therefore, every time, before starting the mass slaughter, it is necessary to experimentally set the temperature and the duration of scalding. Do not try to pluck several poultries at once, initially try on 2 – 3 birds until you achieve the good result.

Basic rules for selecting the correct scalding mode:

If the feather is not completely removed – it is necessary to raise the temperature or increase the duration of scalding.

If the skin breaks – it is necessary to lower the temperature or reduce the duration.

Remember, after scalding a bird must be defeathered immediately. After scalding, the lowest feather holding force is only 15 seconds. If the bird is not plucked immediately, then, naturally, the plucking will not be complete.

In the table below you will find scalding temperature for chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese and other poultry. Use a thermometer with a 100-degree scale to eliminate errors.

Scalding temp for chickens and other poultry:

Do not scald poultries in the boiling water. Control the temperature by thermometer only, because even a deviation of a couple degrees can affect the result.

Plucking

Switch on your defeathering machine before you pull the birds out of the water. Immediately after scalding, throw the bird into a running machine, the disc must be spinning. 

If you wait and put the bird aside for a while, the meat will cool down and the skin will become rough. When such a bird is plucked on a plucking machine, the machine breaks the skin and feather remains firmly seated in the skin.

The duration of plucking is 15-30 sec. While birds spin in the drum, wash feathers off them using the rinsing pistol from your kit connected to the garden hose or through the auto-irrigation ring installed in the machine (if provided). If you use warm water – you can start rinsing feathers off right after you began plucking. If you use cold water – wait 10 sec. and then rinse. After completing de-feathering, turn off the centrifuge and pull the birds out.

If some black dots remain on the skin (in case of quails), take them off using a knife right after a bird was defeathered by the plucker machine. A couple minutes later, it will be almost impossible to get rid of them.

We hope that this article was useful for you and wish you success!

In our online store you can buy any kind of feather removers: poultry plucking machine, plucker drill attachment, automatic scalder, slaughtering cones and plucker fingers.