Fully mature birds with no active new feather growth do best. I have found that birds who have a ...
I have run a couple dozen birds through this thing now.  As others have noted, the scald is very important.  So is the age of the chicken and stage of molt.  Fully mature birds with no active new feather growth do best.  I have found that birds who have a lot of new sheaths growing in are harder to get plucked, sometimes impossible.  Then only hand plucking can get them cleaned.  But for fully mature birds who are not in molt, it does quite well.  In my experience, more than two chickens at a time is too heavy.  The one turkey I tried to pluck didn't go so well.  It seems the bird was too heavy to keep the drum spinning freely, even though it was a wild turkey and didn't seem that large to me. Overall, I'm glad I bought this and it does save a lot of effort during harvesting of multiple birds.
Rating: 4 stars