prepping chicken skins

[caniretireyet?]

Howdy-- I need help. Our newest batch of egg laying chickens is 80% roosters. Many of them have very usable hackle. I've discovered than when I google "prepping chicken skins" I get dropped into a culinary universe. I tried "Chicken taxidermy" and learned some bored taxidermists create some awfully comprimising poses out of the poor birds. Any direction would help. The goal is to avoid my last ill fated encounter in the covert fly tying material world: When a squirrel drowned in my horse trough, I promptly cut the tail off tail off, stuck it in a zip lock on my tying desk, then left on a three week trip. When I got back, the baggie was practically jitterbugging around the room with all the maggots. My wife is a very patient woman.

Thanks,
Steve

[Darian]

I'd bet that anyone who tried to preserve animal/bird skins has had the same problem initially. There was a time in my life when I brought home road kill animals whose hide was undamaged for skinning and preservation. I've done that with Squirrel, Deer (this one was shot by a friend) and a Grey Fox. I draw the line at Skunks, tho. Thinking back on it, that's probably one of the reasons that I've spent lengthy intervals of my life being single....

OK, I can't recall where I read it or what the title was but there was an instructional book/publication that was available concerning choice, skinning, preparation and preservation of animal/bird skins for fly tying when I started doing this in the '60s. One of the single most important steps is ridding the item of pests. That can be accomplished a couple of ways but one of the best, after skinning, scraping off all of the fat, is to place the hide/skin in a heavy zip lock bag and freeze it for a period of time. I've never used this method preferring to use the one in the following paragraph.

Again, scrape all of the fat off the hide/skin and wash it thoroughly in detergent/water, apply powdered Borax and then stretch it out flat to dry in the air. In the case of bird skins, this can be done by laying them out flat between layers of paper ( newspaper, etc.) and placing something heavy on top to keep the skins from curling up. Make sure the skins are absolutely fat free or they can become re-infested. After drying, bird skins can be made more flexible by using some glycerine on the them after the drying process is complete. That way the skin is easier to work with.

Hopefully, others who've done this sort of thing will help with info about how they've done it as well.

[shawn kempkes]

I would just kill the birds and pluck the usable feathers off their skins. Skinning and drying out a chicken is a lot of work and doesnt save you any money or time in the long run.

[Mike McKenzie]

I'd bet that anyone who tried to preserve animal/bird skins has had the same problem initially. There was a time in my life when I brought home road kill animals whose hide was undamaged for skinning and preservation. I've done that with Squirrel, Deer (this one was shot by a friend) and a Grey Fox. I draw the line at Skunks, tho. Thinking back on it, that's probably one of the reasons that I've spent lengthy intervals of my life being single....

OK, I can't recall where I read it or what the title was but there was an instructional book/publication that was available concerning choice, skinning, preparation and preservation of animal/bird skins for fly tying when I started doing this in the '60s. One of the single most important steps is ridding the item of pests. That can be accomplished a couple of ways but one of the best, after skinning, scraping off all of the fat, is to place the hide/skin in a heavy zip lock bag and freeze it for a period of time. I've never used this method preferring to use the one in the following paragraph.

Again, scrape all of the fat off the hide/skin and wash it thoroughly in detergent/water, apply powdered Borax and then stretch it out flat to dry in the air. In the case of bird skins, this can be done by laying them out flat between layers of paper ( newspaper, etc.) and placing something heavy on top to keep the skins from curling up. Make sure the skins are absolutely fat free or they can become re-infested. After drying, bird skins can be made more flexible by using some glycerine on the them after the drying process is complete. That way the skin is easier to work with.

Hopefully, others who've done this sort of thing will help with info about how they've done it as well.

As Darian suggests above.. but rather than the detergent/water, I'd suggest after removing all the fat, etc. try washing the cleaned skin in a pot full of white gas (outside and away from any source of ignition, of course!) then "rinse" the skin in a container full of Borax and rub it dry..A couple of days (or longer if you want to"freeze dry" it) in the freezer gets rid of any "critters" and then do the glycerin trick (or not if you prefer) The white gas does a better job removing blood and oils and is an old taxidermist trick.

Mike

[Steelhead Guide]

As far as game animals are concerned, you have to either inject Formaldehyde into the bones or in most cases just invert and remove the entire bone or tail. I fill it with rock salt and let it set after a brisk washing in salt water. Never had a problem and after the bath of salt they take a dye very well.

[Fats]

I've always used a 50/50 mix of salt and borax to dry out bird skins. Freezing the skin for a week or so tends to kill critters. I'll also store "home cured" stuff away from my other material with mothballs just to make sure.

FWIW, I still had an infestation get through all that and wiped out some "treasured" stuff like my snowshoe hares' feet.

I've plucked some compete necks and sized all the feathers so now if I need a #16 dun hackle, I just pull out the correct box and I'm good to go. It saves time in the long haul.

[caniretireyet?]

I appreciate all the help! I like the idea of freezing them, and can see I'll have to add a freezer to the man-cave. I can just imagine my wife opening a bag in the regular freezer and finding road kill. Intesting ideas on a new use for white gas. I make my own floatant, from Ray Bregman's old recipe using white gas and wax. Who new it had so many "off label" uses.

Thanks much
Steve

[RSK]

I also used to pick up road kill when I was living out in pullman wa and you can pick up some great material that you won't find at the shops, just don't let the warden look at your flies too close. Also had fellow classmates deliver coot, pheasent, and other waterfowl. I scraped the skins clean and salted and boraxed them and let them dry on newspaper on top of the fridge (wife, then girlfriend, would not let it fly now) I still have lots of the skins and have never had a problem with them. Keep them in ziplock bags.

Russell

[dbrosier]

...Our newest batch of egg laying chickens is 80% roosters...

I don't mean to distract you all, but isn't an "egg-laying rooster" a fairly rare bird? Shouldn't we be alerting the media or something. This might be a sign of the apocalypse!

[Darian]

Wonder if the hens have teeth