Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased this plucker in August, 2018. It arrived in good condition, and assembly was easy. We used it to clean about 30 chickens, and it worked mostly as advertised, but I ended up having a few issues. The first problem arose as we were in the middle of butchering, and the GFI switch on the cord tripped. I tried to reset it, but it would not reset. I plugged the cord into several different outlets both on my house and garage, with no luck. Since we needed to finish butchering that day, I ended up bypassing the GFI switch on the plucker cord, and it worked fine after that. I had the plucker plugged into a GFI protected outlet, so I didn't see the need for the additional interrupter anyway. After butchering, I thoroughly cleaned the plucker, and stored it in my garage. A few weeks ago, I plugged it in to test and make sure it was ready for this fall's flock. The motor would not start. Upon plugging it in, I could hear a clicking sound, which I found was the magnetic disconnect switch attached to the drum. This switch will not allow the plucker to run without the drum in place. The switch seemed to be in working order, clicking into place each time I plugged the unit in. I investigated further, by resetting the breaker on the motor, plugging the unit into various outlets in my garage(all of which I tested and found to be working). I could not get the motor to run at all. My unit was just barely within the one year warranty period since purchase, so I contacted Amazon to see if I could exchange for a working unit. Amazon customer service, which has always been very good in my experience, said that they could not exchange, but would refund purchase price if I sent the unit back. So, I ended up totally disassembling the unit so that I could fit it into a large box for return. I was curious to see what may have caused the issue, so during disassembly, I pulled the bottom fan shroud and housing off the electric drive motor. I found that the fan shroud was full of feathers, which totally blocked the air vents on the bottom of the motor. I then removed the blower fan from the shaft, and inspected the shaft seal area. The rubber seal between the fan shaft and the motor housing was all dinged up and torn, with some metal shavings protruding between it and the bore. I can't imagine feathers causing this sort of damage, and believe it was intalled this way at the factory. I then proceeded to pull the bottom cover off the motor housing, and looked inside. I found signs of water damage and corrosion inside the motor itself. It appears that the water coming out of the plucker is able to run along the sides of the motor housing, and down into the fan shroud at the bottom of the motor. The openings at the top of the shroud are big enough to let feathers get in as well. The feathers then plug up the vent slots at the bottom of the shroud, causing it to fill up with water. While not ideal, this would probably not be a huge issue, but coupled with the bad fan shaft seal that was installed on my unit, I think the fan spinning in a pool of water forced water up into the electric motor itself. After the motor sat for a few months with moisture inside, corrosion got the best of it, and it was toast. I am no expert, but this is my best guess as to what happened. The manufacturer should take a look at redesigning the fan shroud to eliminate water and feathers entering, and quality control should do a better job of inspecting the seals on the motor housing. I am not sure what caused my initial problem with the GFI on the cord, but I am assuming it was a faulty switch. For anyone that currently owns one of these, or if you are thinking of buying one, I would pay attention to that bottom fan shroud, and make sure it does not plug and fill with water. Perhaps drilling a few extra holes in the vertical surfaces of the shroud would let water flow out if the bottom slots get plugged. If you are mechanically inclined, a visual check of the fan shaft seal before use would be a good idea. Overall this plucker works great when it works, but I am looking into other options for replacing my dead one. I attached a few photos of the parts that I pulled and inspected, and the inside of the motor housing. It is tough to see in the photos, but there was rust and corrosion on many surfaces inside the electric motor.