Crickett, if you lived closer I'd be glad to come over & walk you through the process of processing. Maybe there's another BYCer in your area that is able & willing.
Here's what I do for processing:
The night before I select the birds I plan to process and confine them to wire cages. They have ample water but NO food, not even grass they can reach through the wire. I usually put a few more than I plan to butcher, just in case I get unexpected help, or a burst of unusual energy.
I assemble my tools & materials. Some are already in place, others are listed on a page taped inside a kitchen cupboard so I won't forget anything. They are:
sharp knives & sharpener
cutting board
disposable gloves
cooler of ice water
zip ties & duct tape
big lined garbage can
hose with trigger nozzle
if I'm plucking, big pots to boil water in, and a bigger one for dunking
I already have a tall work table in the yard, of plywood on sawhorses that I cover with a tarp. I also have a porch swing frame from which I hang the birds for slicing & plucking. I recently bolted a board across its length & attatched 3 different cones I made from different materials.
The next day I take the birds one at a time to butcher. That way if the weather turns bad or something unexpected happens I don't have a bunch of dead birds needing attention. Sometimes I'll have one bird hanging to bleed while I'm cleaning another. I take a bird out of the cage, zip-tie the legs & wrap duct tape around the wings -OR- place it in the cone. Things are pretty calm & quiet, the birds aren't really frightened or stressed, I talk soothingly to them the whole while.
Once the bird is head-down in the frame, I place the garbage can below it, hold his head in one hand, stretch the neck taut, and cut through the jugular vein right below the jawbone. I use a fishing filet knife that's nice & sharp. That neck skin can be surprisingly tough, & you'll feel bad if you have to saw away to cut through it. Not to mention how the bird might feel. You'll know you did it right when you get a nice stream of blood to flow out. At that point, the bird passes out and his problems are over. I cut through both sides of the neck, then hold the head a few moments while the bird wiggles reflexively. You don't have to do this, I just don't like the blood to splatter all around. I hold it in place until the bird gets still, so everything collects in the can.
It only takes a few minutes for the bird to bleed out. If I'm going to pluck, I'll cut off the head, dunk the bird in scalding water (around 140 degrees for about 10 seconds or so) swishing it up & down & around so the water reaches the skin. Test a wing feather to see if it comes out easily, if not, dunk a bit more. Then I hang the bird by its zip-tied feet and pluck into the garbage can.
Lately I've been skinning the birds, using the excellent method depicted in the YouTube video titled "Chicken Processing on Custer Family Farm". It's the most informative video I've seen on the topic. They show an easy way to skin the birds, and also how to clean them out. Even if you've plucked, you can still learn a great way to clean your birds from that video. They show how to lay the bird on his back, make a cut at the top of the cavity, and scoop the innards out towards the bottom.
Then I place the finished bird in the cooler of ice water, and do another. To me, the hardest part of butchering the chickens all by myself is the lack of company. I probably could have done more myself if I even just had someone there to talk to. And if that someone was also willing to do some of the work, we could have finished even more birds.
You may want to try doing just 2 or 3 birds your first session. I wish you the best of success!
