Had a good duck slaughter yesterday. Helped out a young farmer with about a dozen. Similar setup to what Andy used. Unfortunately, the *whiz-bang* plucker tended to beat up the ducks before the feathers were removed. The farmer confirmed that chickens go through the plucker much easier. To avoid broken bones, we ended up hand plucking his market birds. Wasn't too bad, except that they were young birds with a fair bit of pin feathers. We decided to let the remaining flock put on some more pounds and outgrow their pin feathers for another week or so....

The dish soap hint was the ticket for scalding. He loaded a spray bottle with a mild dish soap solution. He had an outdoor sink with stainless counter tops, so we rinsed them off a bit in the sink, worked the soap spray into the feathers and scalded. The soap cut the oil in the feathers nicely and gave good results.

He's got some hogs and chickens too with hog slaughter this Fall. Labor may yield some good eats....