How much water does a chicken plucker use?

We are 100% off grid.  We collect rain water and occasionally have to haul water in.  We just finished raising our first round of meat birds and feel that it was a worthwhile venture.  We already ordered our second flock and are looking to streamline the processing…process.  
  Can anyone give any insight into how much water a plucker uses? We are in the high desert and water is like gold to us.  We run a two person team when processing. It seems like a plucker would stand in as the perfect third person and speed the process up a good bit.
  Any insight is appreciated.

I too am interested in this question. Also, what do folks do with all the water being used? Do you just let it drain on the ground? Seems like it would make a muddy mess quickly. Is it safe to use for irrigating a garden?

Chard Irking wrote:I too am interested in this question. Also, what do folks do with all the water being used? Do you just let it drain on the ground? Seems like it would make a muddy mess quickly. Is it safe to use for irrigating a garden?

   Feathers, bone and blood are all good for the garden soil. However, they do run some risk of carrying pathogens, so dumping on compost or dumping it on a “resting” garden area, might be a safer idea. Definitely don’t get it on leafy greens.
 I am thinking about trying to build a screened recycling tank to the used water.  But before I go to all that trouble, I would like to have some idea how much water I would be using. If it’s 5 gallons, might not be worth the trouble of collecting. If it is 100 gallons, different story

I might be wrong because I haven't butchered chickens (yet) but isn't the plucker separate from the scalder which has the water in it?

I believe the plucker doesn't utilize water?

Timothy Norton wrote:I might be wrong because I haven't butchered chickens (yet) but isn't the plucker separate from the scalder which has the water in it?

I believe the plucker doesn't utilize water?

First, yes the scalder uses water - it's about 160F so needs to cool before applying to plants and as T. says, it will be full of feathers, blood and shit. I would try to apply that water to a mulch pit near trees if my processing area wasn't so far away from useful trees.  

A plucker requires water as a spray to keep the feathers moving away. That water will have huge numbers of feathers in it. The quantity of water would be very dependent on the number of birds, and likely the style of plucker. I don't own one and the odd time I've borrowed one, I've tried to set it up where the water can run to a suitably useful spot, and raked up most of the sopping feathers and composted them.

I would expect the plucker manufacturer to have some estimate of the quantity of water per bird. However, unless you put you and the plucker up on an elevated surface like a trailer, or have some kind of concrete pad with a drain system and a good filter ahead of it so it doesn't clog constantly, if you are talking a relatively small quantity of birds, this may make this cost prohibitive.

A plucker would seriously speed up the job an reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries. Knowing approximately how many birds/batch you plan on doing at once, and how many times per year, would be helpful towards people making suggestions that will be relevant.

My guess - about half a gallon of water per cycle.

My gut reaction was that it would use too much water in a desert situation, but it got me curious. I was thinking of the kind you hook a hose to and then it sprays the whole time while you take stuff in and out. That would use a lot of water, but most pluckers I see on the market, require you to spray water in with a hose while it spins. The first plucker I found said it could pluck a chicken "in a few seconds". One of the reviews said it plucked their chicken in 17 seconds. I rounded up to 20 seconds to make the math easier. The first hose nozzle I found with a water flow rate, was 2.5 gallons per minute. If you spray only while plucking and if I did my math right, that would be about .5 gallon per use. I imagine if you are plucking 4 chickens at a time, it might use more than a half gallon, but probably not as much as if all 4 chickens were done separately.

Not sure if that helps any since these are all guesses and averages. Sounds like no one has paid attention to the amount of water used :)... and in the desert... that is a very important question.

In the long long ago, I remember that a plucker was a simple rotating drum with rubber fingers that pulled feathers after scalding. No water was involved. Clue me in - maybe the tech has evolved?

Matt McSpadden wrote:My guess - about half a gallon of water per cycle.

Not sure if that helps any since these are all guesses and averages. Sounds like no one has paid attention to the amount of water used :)... and in the desert... that is a very important question.

Guesses and averages are a good starting point. Your estimate gives a good idea of scale. Half a gallon per bird compared to 10 gallons per bird would add up (multiply perhaps?) quickly if you had a decent number of chickens, which I think most folks considering the use of a plucker would have.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:In the long long ago, I remember that a plucker was a simple rotating drum with rubber fingers that pulled feathers after scalding. No water was involved. Clue me in - maybe the tech has evolved?

It is the same basic technology, I think the water just helps to get the feathers off and out of the way faster and easier and with less mess.