Doing in just 1 bird

I can be done although scalding makes it a little easier. I've read some other posts where depending on how you "do" it, the feathers can literally come right out. I believe the one method was to use a very sharp knife and insert it in the roof of the mouth into the brain and give it 1/4 turn. Can't remember what they called that method and I've never tried it.
 
Me neither. All you can do then is try to pluck and if it's too difficult, then skin. I've dry-plucked a few and it was ok until I got to the wings. Those are tough. Good luck -
 
I've found dry-plucking to be fairly easy and work fairly well. (I suck at scalding anyhow
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) There is variation among birds -- may relate to where exactly I catch them with the hatchet, I dunno -- but I think it is a good option for one bird.

Yes, the flight feathers of the wing (and sometimes the big tailfeathers) can be difficult to remove, but if you get frustrated or if you can't get them out, even with pliers, without ripping the skin up, it is easy to just cut off the end segment of the wing and the tip of the tail and discard them, which really does not affect the eating qualities of the carcass at all and can save a lot of colorful language.

Good luck,

Pat
 
When I was younger, my parents used to scald our chickens by heating water on the stove in a large pot, and taking that outside and pouring the hot water over the chicken, thouroughly getting it soaked. It seemed to work well, although I was too young to "participate".

Brad
 
For one bird, I would just skin.

Most of my cooking (curry, soup, etc) I don't use the skin. I only eat the skin when grilling or roasting. So what do you plan on doing with the chicken?
 
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I skinned him. Man I am NEVER trying to butcher one of the extremely feathered varieties like the cochin I just did. man what an incredible pain!!!

From now on it's low feathered meaties for me!
 
This is good to know! LOL! We did our 5 roosters by scalding and the feathers were very easy to do. We got a cheap stock pot at Walmart for this. I'm going to look at our flea market this summer for more big pots. We're taking our meaties to a gal that processes them for 2 dollars a bird. Well worth the mess and the time to us for as many as we are going to do.
 

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