FunClucks
Crowing
Check out the Sticky
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/meat-section-sticky-topic-index.248648/
I looked at all the links and learned a lot. I bought the classic butchering book everyone recommends, and it had a line diagram with dotted lines on where to cut. So I was like, okay, guess I have to just do some and figure it out as I go. I've done 21 CX at 5-9 wks and one year old production red rooster. So I'm not super experienced, but I skinned at least half the CX and the old rooster, and they have been delicious!
I tie wire around a tree with a bit of give. (After wrapping tree with cut open large lawn garbage bag). Once birds are dispatched and drained (or they can drain on the tree), I secure wire to their feet, and make a sort of bent hook in the middle so it will hook over the wire I've got tied around the tree (looks like an M with the feet at the outer bottom ends of the M). The wire you use should be stiff enough it will hold the bird, but still easy enough to bend, but will hold its shape once bent. Chain link fence tiedown wire is a good example.
The birds rest back towards the tree, breast facing me. I wash the area around the vent (ETA: and the legs of the bird below the wire, but not the feet) with dish soap (may not be needed if your bird has been starved for 12 hrs prior to processing, and does not have a messy rear), and spray the soap off and spray down the feathers to keep down the dust (optional). Get really sharp knives/razor blade knives. Trim the line around the leg joint where the scales turn into skin. May have to go slightly below the joint so you can get purchase on the skin, and worry about the small feathered area just around the joint later. Cut entirely around each leg, just into the skin. There will be connective tissue, don't cut through that, your knife will stop there anyway.
Make a slice down the outside of each leg a few inches 2-4" or so. Grab the edges of the skin at the T intersection of your cuts and pull apart on each side of the bird. Separate the skin from the meat across the breast with your hand, then cut the skin from one side to the other across the breast so you can pull that skin up and between the legs towards the back. Take a minute, go loosen the skin on the back sides, and across the back. Work the skin towards the vent from the breast, loosen the skin around the legs/back join, and work it towards the vent also. Cut the skin across the back from one side to the other a few inches below the tail after you've loosened it as much as you can. Pull all that skin towards the vent and tail as much as you can without removing vent and tail. Pull or trim any annoying feathers, then trim the skin smaller as much as you like to get it out of your way.
Go back to the skin on the breast and pull that down until you get past the first joint of the wings. You can pull the back skin down as well, kind of like removing a glove at this point. Pull the skin down the neck and first part of the wing as much as you can, when it gets so tight you can't pull it anymore, cut the skin at the body/wing joint to loosen it up. Leave a few inches of skin on either side of the cut to grab.
Pull the skin towards the wing on one side of the bird until it stops at the pin feathers. Using your really sharp knife, slice the pinfeathers off the wing bone, and don't cut yourself. You may remove some wing meat when you do this - the slice/cut is right up on the bone and along the length of the bone. Cut the joint between the wing tip and wing to remove and discard the wingtip - it will stay with the skin.
Do the same stuff with the other wing. Loosen the back again if necessary.
Finish pulling the skin off the neck and down towards the head. When you reach the neck /head joint, remove the head by cutting through the neck. The head will stay with the skin. Place the skin in your discard bucket - you are finished removing it.
Spray down the bird throughout the process when you feel it's needful - to remove feathers, blood (there won't be much), etc. Or just spray well at the end to remove any stray feathers. Unless you've cleaned the feet with soap, water, and a brush very well before hanging up the bird, don't get those wet, so the dirt and poo in the feet will not drip on your carcass.
I remove the carcass from the tree at this point, put it on a table, cut off the feet, and then start separating the crop and esophagus from the neck. Move bird, spray down table, and carcass, and wash hands as needed after removing feet.
After the crop and esophagus are removed, I gut the chicken. It lies on its back. I slit open the abdomen, remove the entrails, save anything I'd like to (heart, gizzard, kidneys), then cut into the carcass around the tail and around the vent at the same time to remove the tail and the vent while it's still attached to the entrails. This way I don't puncture the entrails.
I spray it off good after all that, and then start parting out the chicken. Hope this helps. There's a few members on here that skin, but I was never able to find a video. Maybe I just didn't look hard enough. I found a fair bit of info on gamebirds, and skinning them, and just adapted that.
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