One thing that keeps me from getting broilers in my suburban backyard is the hassle of dunking, plucking, and eviscerating. I put down an old laying hen a couple of years ago and I didn’t even have a big enough pot to do the dunking right. I’d hate to try to process a couple dozen broilers in my garage the way I dressed that poor old hen.

I wonder if the job couldn’t be made simpler by (1) clipping off the last two digits of the wings and the tail before plucking (who eats the tail and wing ends anyway?); (2) maybe skinning the bird instead of plucking it; and (3) cutting off the leg quarters, upper wing, and breast meat and avoiding evisceration altogether.

It seems like boiling, dunking, plucking, cutting, gutting, singeing, and cleaning up is a lot of extra work just to keep parts I don’t eat anyway. If I toss the neck, wings, feathers, skin, tail, and body cavity and just cut off the breasts, leg quarters, and upper wings, about the only thing I might really miss is the liver.

Does anyone with more experience than me know whether it is practical to skin and cut up a fresh bird without plucking and eviscerating?

You could try hunting if you would like to eat meat or poultry. That way you wouldn’t be attached to the animals you’re eating. You would also avoid supporting the square foot commercial husbandry business. Anyway, isn’t hunted meat the ultimate free range experience?

Within months, all the animals became pets and it is so wonderful to visit the sheep, chickens, ducks, geese etc (as well as our English speaking friends).

How does one stop from getting close to all these beautiful beings? I mean, one shouldn’t eat one’s friends should one???

I guess I am doomed to become a vegetarian and graze on the same grains and grass myself.