How to Pick the Right Size Scalder and Plucker

One of the most common challenges for on-farm poultry processors is selecting the best scalder and plucker combo. The scalder and plucker are the foundation to the entire processing experience. You can have the perfect flow, process design, cooler, tables, and people, but if you pick the wrong scalder and plucker combo, you will compromise processing day. Too often, on-farm processors choose their scalder/plucker combination based on price. This leads to purchasing inferior designs, lightweight construction, and cheap imports that will need to be replaced with a commercial scalder and plucker combination, such as the Poultry Man equipment.

Poultry Man scalders and pluckers are designed for small-scale commercial processors and the farmers who process on farm.

Picking a Scalder and Plucker Combination

Selecting the best scalder and plucker combo for your chicken or turkey processing usually requires you to know the following information:

• How many chickens or turkeys you intend to process in one day.
• How many chickens or turkeys you intend to process in a year.
• Your budget.

For example, if you intend to process 75 birds five or six times a year, then the manual scalder and 23″ plucker is a economical and reasonable combo choice. However, if you intend to process 50 birds 26 times a year, then the efficiency of the 30″ rotary scalder and 27″ plucker combo makes a lot of sense because the increased capacity will mean a faster processing day, and the rotary scalder will free a person from running the scalder.

The capacity column will tell you what the recommended scalder and plucker combo can handle at one time. The equipment capacity is matched to get the most efficiency out of the setup. You wouldn’t use a manual scalder with a 35″ plucker, for example. The scalder can’t scald enough birds to get an clean pluck in a 35″ plucker.

Daily Chicken Volume	Recommended Scalder	Recommended Plucker	Chicken Capacity	Turkey Capacity
25	Small Manual	22″	2	N/A
< 50	Manual	23″	2-4	N/A
< 200	30″ Rotary	27″	4-6	1-2
< 500	41″ Rotary	35″‘	8+	2-4
> 500	47″ Rotary	35″	10+	4+

The ideals laid out are guidelines. Capacities, for example, will be influenced by the size of your birds, the quality of your help, and your will to process efficiently. In other words, if your equipment is capable of processing 10 seven-week-old Cornish Cross at a time, but you like to raise your birds to be ten weeks old, then you’ve just reduced your capacity. As another example, if your processing help can’t talk and eviscerate at the same time, then being able to scald and pluck 12 chickens at a time is a secondary concern.

Like a lot of important decisions, purchasing the best equipment you can afford is the rule of thumb. Selecting based on cheap price only works if you’re not engaged in a serious business.