Good question. I just posted a similar question.

Yea I just processed three rosters it's easy to do a couple just for your own consumption but I think more u process at once the more help or equipment you'll need

My hubby wants to raise meat chickens. We have a blonde one that lays green eggs. She is very docile and eats less than our Rhode Island Reds do. He wants to skin them instead of having to pluck the feathers. Has anyone heard of doing it that way?

It certainly is the easiest way to butcher a chicken but the skin is my favorite part.

I love the skin. He doesn't want to have to pluck them. Have you ever skinned one?

We do it the old fashion way. Build a fire. Boil a tub of water; wring the chicken's neck, hold it by the feet and dip it into the boiling water. Pull out the feathers then singe the remaining pin feathers off in the fire. Cut it up and place the meat in a washed milk carton and cover with water and freeze. Meat will stay fresh and tasty until thawed for cooking.

I can't kill the little guys. Someone else would have to do it. Anyone in the Raleigh area that wants them?

What are the best meat chickens to raise?

we do the same as charlieboring to butcher except we put a squirt of dish soap in the water to ease the feathering . If you have the temperature of the water just right every feather just slides right off. Also if you do it immediately after the butchering (let them bleed out first) then it goes easier as well so we only prepare 5 birds at a time before going on to the next 5. Getting the birds as fast as possible to the cooling tub is key.

Our set up has

one container of almost boiling water with dish soap to dip the bird ( head chopped) then onto a table and feather the bird then into-----

a tub with hot soapy water to wash the outside of the bird then-----

we take off the feet, evicerate and clean then into-----

another tub of warm water to clean the insides well then finally into----

a tub of very cold water to cool off the bird.

With this set up two people can do 20 birds in just a few hours depending on your speed and how hard it is to catch the birds, nice and quick and your whole day is not gone, and it does not feel like such a chore.