When I process them, I am thinking about skinning most of them.

[Denninmi]

In my household, we discard chicken skin most of the time anyway, unless I'm going to roast or rotisserie a whole bird. I usually fry it up and FEED IT TO THE CHICKENS (we have a don't ask, don't tell policy on this!).

Anyway, out of the 2 dozen, I think I might be inclined to scald and pluck 5 or 6, and just skin the rest.

My basic question -- I've heard that the skin is pretty easy and "slips" or peels of like a glove if done right away, but after just a few minutes, it gets a lot harder. True?

If so, I guess it would be kill, skin, gut one at a time, rather than kill a batch, then skin them all, then gut them all.

 

[Lotsapaints]

I skinned an older roster it was more work than just plucking him......I was alone and wanted to try it just one so heating water up etc was out of the question it was hard on my thumbs getting older isn't all great!

 

[yinepu]

I've never had a problem skinning old roos.. well.. even young ones.. we skin about 75% of ours..
the skin peels off just like skinning a rabbit for me and is a whole lot faster than plucking.
I don't let mine sit around.. so no idea if it gets harder or not.. all I know is it makes processing go pretty fast when you skin them

 

[KatyTheChickenLady]

you know dinnimi you make a good point! for the most part we skin the majority of ours too, right before or right after cooking, it does seem a bit of a waste to go through all the trouble of plucking . . . hmm I need to do some thinking.

 

[erinchelsea]

We were thinking of doing this with some of ours we are processing this weekend, too. I'll let you know how it goes if we try it! It sure looks easy when I've seen it done on youtube videos.

 

[becky3086]

I have skinned them before and I won't say they peel off like a glove. Some parts aren't hard to get off but others are but it is easier than plucking. We like the skin so I usually only skin the breasts which we like better made into chicken strips.

 

[FeedYourself]

Skinning is pretty easy. You can see some videos of methods on youtube if you search for "processing chickens".

The entire process (including skinning) takes me about 10 minutes/bird. I wouldn't say I am good at it...just average. When we butchered the entire flock of CX's, we rented a plucker though.