Gotta tell you about the home built chicken plucker I saw this wk end. It was made out of a piece of 4" pvc about 18" long and had holes drilled for the fingers. The caps were screwed to washers welded to the shaft and the whole thing was mounted on pillow blocks and powered by a drill. It could pluck a chicken in about 45 seconds.
The plucker fingers come in all sizes to pluck anything from a humming bird to a bald eagle. The rest of it was basically scrounge. Even the bearings could have been wood. The whole thing was on saw horses and had home made killing cones (basically a megephone for an inverted chicken) mounted on each side. When one was draining, the other was plucked.
Wish I had a picture.
