In skinning birds, after fresh cotton plugs have been put in place the feathers are parted and the opening incision made through the skin only from the middle of the breast to the root of the tail. Separate the skin and flesh on each side until the knee is reached, push this up until the knife or scissors can be passed under it and the leg severed at the joint. A little corn meal sprinkled on the exposed flesh and the operator's fingers will prevent the feathers adhering and becoming soiled as the work proceeds.
Cut off the flesh in which the tail quills are rooted leaving it on the skin with one or two of the last vertebrae. Use care in this or you will cut the skin above the tail too. The body may now be hung up by a cord tied to the stump of one of the legs and both hands used in separating and turning the skin back until the wings are reached. The skin is loosened around these and they may be severed at the elbow joint unless the bird is to be mounted with wings spread, when it will be best to unjoint at the shoulder and preserve the entire wing bones.
With the wings detached we skin on to the base of the skull. In some of the ducks, and other water birds, woodpeckers and owls the neck is so slender and the skull so large that it is necessary to cut the neck off here and making a cut down the back of the head and neck continue the skinning of the head through it. Do not cut or tear the membrane of the ears but pull it out with the forceps and work down over the eyes, cutting the membrane connecting the skin but not the lids or eyeball itself. The liquid contents of the eye are particularly sticky and difficult to remove from feathers.
Continue skinning to the base of the bill, scoop the eyes from their sockets and cut loose the forward part of the skull from the neck. This is usually accomplished with four snips of the scissors much easier to practice than to describe.
Make one cut on each side of the head, through the small bone connecting the base of the lower jaw with the skull, another through the roof of the mouth at the base of the upper mandible and between the jaws of the lower, and the last through the skull behind the eyes and parallel with the roof of the mouth. This will free the skull of the neck and most of its flesh and muscle.
In most cases the head should be returned to the skin as soon as possible to avoid its drying out of shape and giving the feathers a wrong set. After cleaning and poisoning the skull and filling the eye sockets with cotton this reversing is undertaken. If working on a small bird the learner is apt to come to grief here, as only by careful and patient work without the application of some force is the returning process accomplished successfully.
The wings and legs may now be skinned down to the first joint and all flesh and muscle removed from the bones. This is done expeditiously by snipping off the end of the leg bone and stripping it down with adhering flesh to the ankle joint where it (the flesh) is cut off.
The wings are skinned to the first joint, stripping the wing primary feathers from their fastening on the bone with the thumb nail, clipping off the large bone near the end and detaching the small bone with all flesh and muscle adhering. If this is clipped off at the wrist joint the entire wing is cleaned. This method applies to all small and medium birds not wanted with spread wings.