Green’s Dictionary of Slang

chicken-butcher n.¹

a poulterer.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Chicken Butcher a Poulterer. Irish.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1856		Liverpool Mercury 29 Sept. 3/1: The ramifications of this particular vice [i.e. failing to pay one’s losing wagers] are so extensive [...] in the haughty aristocrat who ‘levants’ as well as in the stable boy or ‘chicken butcher,’ who ‘can’t show’.