By way of introduction I'll introduce what I think are the main questions that a student would have coming into such a class, and also the main things that I think should be impressed on them.
Why is chicken considered more hazardous than other meats? Why is the risk of salmonella so high?
What's the fastest way to break down a chicken? The easiest?
Are FDA guidelines for cooking chicken really that important?
What does "humane," "halal," etc mean anyways?
I assume for the sake of time efficiency that the students (who in my case have already paid money to attend) already have a "why" as in "why should I learn to butcher a chicken?" etc. I should also mention that these notes are intended for a two-hour, one-time class of amateur home cooks. Anyways, here are the notes as they stand now.
Preliminaries
Chickens are descendants of red junglefowl, a species of bird which still lives wild in Asia. Junglefowl like to live in so-called "disturbed habitats," for example recently-burned forests and the edges of human settlements. Their relatively docile nature and natural affinity for habitats that humans themselves create made them handy for domestication. Since then chickens have become some of the most numerous livestock worldwide. (I recently read that domestic chickens comprise 70% of bird biomass on Earth.)
Their anatomy is much like that of other birds, only perhaps slightly plumper due to the cushy living conditions to which they're accustomed. Yet their small size and ubiquity in developed markets makes them a good candidate for learning to butcher at home; once you learn how to break down a chicken you can break down a turkey, duck, goose, guinea fowl, pheasant, quail, flamingo, etc, with only slight adjustments to technique. (The method to break down rabbit is also quite similar in approach.)
The chickens which we usually sell at [my butcher shop] come from Giannone Poultry, located outside of Montreal. They work quite closely with their farmers to ensure a pretty high standard of cleanliness for their chickens, as well as generally high welfare standards, with many (but not all) of their farms being certified humane by the Certified Humane Project (whose standards can be found here). These standards assure, among other things, that the chickens are not exposed to certain toxins in their environment, that they have enough room to at least move around and stretch their wings without difficulty, that their food and water be plentiful and clean, and that the chickens have access to an "enriching environment" - basically, that they have things to do other than wait around to die. The result of these standards are chickens who are free of disease, not overly stressed during their lifetime, and yet also free of antibiotics. The chickens are slaughtered via sticking (possibly after being stunned or rendered unconscious), and a short prayer to the God of Islam Allah is said before each chicken is cut so that the meat is also halal.
After slaughter, the chickens are air-chilled. This essentially means that instead of being dunked in chlorinated water to cool them down (if you remember the controversy about "chlorinated chicken" from a few years ago, this is what that was referring to), they are exposed to cold air. This is a superior method for producing chicken that tastes good, since there is no chance the carcass will soak up any extra water and dilute the flavor of the meat, plus the chicken isn't treated with chlorine. But this process requires more resources (water is more efficient than air at cooling things so water immersion is faster; plus air chilling requires more space) and that cost is transferred onto you the consumer.
From an economic perspective, water chilling is the superior method for mass-producing chicken: water cools things down faster than air at the same temperature, so each chicken spends less time cooling; water tanks are smaller than the facilities required for air chilling; chlorinated water will kill any surface microbes that could cause an immediate health hazard; and since the carcasses will take on water and have a higher sale weight, they can be sold at a higher price even if the cost per pound is the same. So industry has long favored water chilling in places where water is plentiful. But from a gastronomic perspective it's obvious that air-chilling is superior. Air-chilled chickens don't soak up water, so the flavor is more intense; since producers can't just wash off any microbes, they have to take slightly more precautions to ensure the chickens have decent living standards while alive; and the chickens seem to last longer after they've been packaged. The tradeoff is that, since in most cases air-chilling is a less time- and resource-efficient, more-expensive process, that cost is transferred onto the consumer; but you get what you pay for.
For all these reasons we sell air-chilled chicken at [my shop].
Now after the chicken has been slaughtered, cleaned, and aged for about a day to fend off rigor mortis, they're ready for processing. The most basic way you're likely to get a chicken is as a so-called "whole chicken." But of course the chicken isn't whole - it's already had it head, neck, and feet removed, its entrails taken out (possibly also cleaned and returned to the carcass as giblets), and its oil gland (technical name: uropygial gland) removed. All of these steps are done to make your job at home (or our job here at the shop) easier; again, the cost for these conveniences are transferred ultimately onto the consumer.
Before we start to cut, a brief word on food safety. Chicken is infamous for its risk of salmonella. At the farms, some chickens have salmonella inside of them, and they pass this on to their eggs. Critically, the salmonella can actually get into the muscle fibers of the chicken, for one reason or another, and so rare chicken is usually considered unsafe even though rare beef is usually OK if it came from a trusted source. A lot of this risk is mitigated in chickens raised in clean environments, but it's always there. This is why the FDA says to always cook your chicken to 165 deg. F - it's the temperature at which foodborne pathogens die instantly. However, [this section needs more work]
Chicken breakage
I say "breakage" to mean any approach to turning a whole chicken to smaller parts.
Even if you leave the chicken whole for roasting, you'll likely benefit from removing the wishbone, which is the bird's clavicle. This makes carving the breast easier on a whole bird, and is essential for breaking it down into more parts later.
Demonstration: removing wishbone.
Spatchcocking. This entails removing the spine and flattening the bird so that it lies flat, with its breast flanked by its legs. This shape is very conducive to roasting or grilling and is a good way to both shorten the cook time and produce a juicier roast.
Demonstration: removing spine with shears; removing keelbone.
Now the bulk of our class will focus on fabricating a chicken into eight parts: chicken 8 ways, as we call it. It produces two drums, two thighs, two breasts, and two wings.
There are a few ways to go about this; but I'm going to assume you don't have a pair of kitchen shears at home and show you how I would do this at the shop. After some practice this method is extremely quick and pretty easy. There are a few hard steps but we'll take our time on them.
The first step is removing the wishbone, which we've already demonstrated.
Severing the spine. Slice through the skin adjoining the thighs and breasts, one at a time. Make incisions that slice all the way to the spine on the backside of the bird. Hyperextend the spine to snap it at this central point; slice through the fissure with the knife to separate the two halves. This last step might take a little force.
Separating the legs from the spine. We'll do one side at a time. Dislocate the hip joint by extending the thigh backwards. Feel for the bony section of leg near the spine. Cut through the exposed tendons at this part of the carcass, and extend this cut towards the tail of the carcass to separate the leg below the joint from the spine. Now you can remove the legs by simply cutting the rest of the way through the joint, or you can optionally remove the oysters: this step takes extra time but I always do it since the oysters are probably the best part of the chicken.
Demo: removing oysters.
Now we'll separate the drumsticks and the thighs. On the cut side of the legs, find the line of fat running across the joint. Follow this line with your knife in a clean cut. This method will almost always lead you straight through the joint, but you may miss. If so, explore with your knife until you find the joint: your knife will go straight through with little resistance. You can cut through the bone with brute strength, but it looks worse and will hurt your knife. Repeat on the other leg.
Now we'll tackle the other half of the bird, which is sometimes called a crown roast. First, remove the wings. The best way to do this is with a sort of scooping motion. Have the crown laying on its breast and grab a wing between your fingers, then twist the wing to expose the armpit. Cut into this crease. You'll probably hit bone, but keep exploring with your knife until you cut into the joint (you'll probably need to cut closer to the breast in order to do this). Once you're in it, twist the knife towards you and finish the cut. The end result should be a separated chicken wing with minimal breast meat on it. This takes a lot of practice, so don't worry if you don't get it at first. Repeat on the other wing.
Now we have to remove the backbone. We can do this by standing the chicken on its head end and cutting down the ribcage. The right part to start the cut is where the ribcage seems to have a crook in it. Keep the movement quick and confident, and try to cut straight down to the board. Sometimes you go straight through; sometimes you get caught on a bone. If you do get caught, your best best is just to crunch straight through. Repeat on the other side to yield a neck connected to the spine.
The remaining breast portion is a bone in whole breast (also sometimes called a crown roast). We only have one more cut: to separate the two breasts. This is as simple as laying the breast skin-side-down, marking the middle point through the keel bone, and cutting through. This takes some oomph, but is otherwise pretty simple - just crunch though.
Our yield now is two breasts, two wings, two thighs, and two drums - chicken 8 ways. As a bonus, we also have the spine, also cut in two. You can further fabricate this into a "country cut" chicken by cutting the breasts in half. This makes all the pieces a more even size: much better for frying or sauteing.
Bonus demos: Separating wings into party wings, deboning breasts, deboning legs.
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