Boys dispatched today

[RichmondHens]

You can get rid of the hairs by singeing them off pre-cooking.

"Proper" free range chicken is different to an intensively reared supermarket one, but oh how much nicer it is to know it had a happy healthy life right up until D Day, and personally I much prefer the proper flavour too. Shop bought chicken to me is just pappy and flavourless. And over time, you learn how to manage your meat birds so that they do end up with a good amount of flesh on them. And the breed helps too of course. Lighter types are always going to be on the smaller side and this is where you can decide between skinning and plucking. We pluck our big meaty boys for roasting, and skin smaller breeds for casseroles.

[Hilary B]

Seymour (Self-Sufficiency) describes how to do the messy bit, with pictures (sketches not photos), and as Vicky says, there is no need to cut into the digestive tract. It doesn't take all that much strength either.
I like to hang chooks for a couple of days (in a really cold place) before gutting. You can't properly hang them AFTER gutting, and if they were old enough for a decent flavour, they need a bit of hanging to avoid toughness (and it improves the flavour as well). If you decide to skin rather than pluck, don't hang after that either!
By the time I've done the plucking, the bird isn't warm any more anyway.