Boiling water with a little liquid detergent. Dunk bird in water and scald for 20 seconds. Precede with plucking.

Youtube has videos.

Eric

The plucking is easier than the butchering and gutting out. You know, if you are really adverse to plucking, chickens can be skinned out like any other game.

The plucking is really not so bad...if you can gut them, you can certainly pluck them. For scalding, the more evenly you can keep the temperature of the water, the better. We use one of those things for deep frying turkeys...that works pretty well. Also, if you're doing broilers, time becomes an issue...but the more attention you pay to when they molt, the more you can work to find a good, 'pin feather-less' time to butcher. Ideally, if you can catch them right before they molt, those feathers will just fall out and the pin feathers won't have started to come in yet. Unbelievable how easy plucking is if you get the timing right.
It took us a few seasons to start figuring it out though...and it's not really an exact science, you've just got to pay attention to your birds.