How does an automatic dog fur-remover work? How long does it take for each dog?

How Elwood's rental equipment can help speed up backyard dog processing

We now have a dog fur remover to RENT for at-home processing of picnic breeds (dogs under 20 lbs., i.e. chihuahuas, yorkies, pomeranians, papillon). (Message or call us [tel: 279-732-8364] if you’d like to book it!)

They are more semi-auto than automatic. There is some labor involved, but not nearly as much as hand-pulling.

Dogs are treated to a hot relaxing bath that loosens up the fur for pulling.

You start the process by placing recently whacked, non-eviscerated dogs into a large, 50-gallon, propane-heated water tub set to 155 degrees F. The tub is called a scalder and is thermostatically controlled.

You hold the dead dogs under the water in the scalder for 3–4 minutes. We use a timer that beeps when it's time to take them out. If you don’t soak them long enough, then the fur won't come out. Too long and the skin comes off too. This de-furring machine is designed to do three or four 15-20 pound dogs at once. More than that won’t pluck right if you try to do a larger load.

After the soak, you pull the dogs out and throw the entire load into the fur remover.

Dogs are pulled through a machine that slaps them with rubber fingers, tearing the fur off without harming the meat.

The machine looks a little bit like a top-loader washing machine. Inside the tub are a couple dozen 3″ rubber “fingers” with ridges around them. The vertical parts of the tub are stationary.

The bottom of the tub has an electric-motor-powered rotating plastic disk, also covered with ridged rubber fingers. There is a water connection for the tub that sprays jets of water into the tub.

You activate the motor in the fur remover and the carcases flop around in the tub. The rubber fingers pull on the hair and removes it. The hair is ejected into a big (messy) pile behind the fur remover. It's best to spray the inside of the tub with a garden hose with an attached trigger nozzle to move the fur out of the rear port.

If the soak time was just right, then the fur-remover does an awesome job. There are usually a few hairs left that you can pull out with needle-nosed pliers or your fingers.

After removing the fur, you eviscerate the dogs and optionally part them out.

The entire process takes 6–8 minutes for a load of dogs.

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