Fantastic Feedback!! Thank you both so much!!
Lots of affirmation and some new good tips too.
This was exactly my concern "[COLOR=333333] ......you don't want to have multiple birds in various stages of butchering...... [/COLOR]"
Now that part is settled, I can move my thinking onto getting the gear all gathered and plan the set up.
I like the skin, but may try skinning too as it would save alot of time and effort.
Too bad the younger ones are easier to skin, especially when they are young enough to still put on the grill......[
......cause not many things more delicious than crispy grilled chicken skin right off the grill, it even reheats pretty well with a fresh home grown bird.
I look at that as God having a sense of humor.
We’ve all got different set-ups. One issue I have with scalding is that I don’t have a good way to heat the water. It takes forever to get the water hot enough with my set-up, even if I start with the hottest tap water I can get down there. Once it’s hot I can keep it hot, but since I have to skin them anyway for my wife I don’t see any benefit in spending the money to make it easier to heat the water.
I’ve scalded/plucked and I’ve skinned. I recently processed some five month old pullets. I could not have plucked them any faster than I skinned them, even with the water already hot. I could pluck two, maybe even three, mature roosters faster than I can skin one. Skinning is not always faster (especially if you have an automatic plucker), but plucking is not always faster either. Skinning does require more strength though, especially with the wings. I don’t bother with the wing tips, just cut them off with the poultry shears. If you like the wing tips you need to pluck.
Another factor can be the molt. If you happen to butcher the young ones during a juvenile molt or you wait until the mature hens quit laying and are into the molt (which happens to me) you are going to have a lot of pin feathers to deal with if you pluck, especially if they have darker feathers. Since I skin those it’s not an issue. Aart you know me, I can always come up with exceptions and things to think about instead of categorically saying one way is better than another.
I don’t know if either of those you butchered were hens. If you haven’t butchered hens yet, don’t be surprised by the amount of fat they have. Some hens have a lot more than others but a hen will have a lot more fat than a rooster. They store this extra fat to live off of when they go broody so a hen in lay will have more than when she is molting. A lot of this fat is stored in the pelvic region but you can find fat under the skin and on a lot of the organs. A hen in lay may have an unbelievable fat pad but that does not mean she is too fat or unhealthy. Just be ready for that fat if you haven’t seen it.