Emu Tanning

[Corvus_Animus]

Hi there!

My friend recently skinned an emu and wants to keep the skin as a study hide.  He asked me about how to preserve the skin, but I'm only used to study skins of small birds where we just let the bird dry without any additional treatment.  I get the impression that a large ratite may require some tanning, but I'm very in the dark here.

Does anyone have experience with this or tips?  I'm COMPLETELY new to tanning (if that gives you the idea of how detailed of tips I might need). 

Thanks so much!!!

[Keith Daniels]

You'll need to clean the skin off real well, if it's a little one there won't be much to it. A bigger, older bird will have heavier skin with more tissue and fat that needs removed to preserve it, pay special attention to the group of the quill butts, fat will probably need cleaned out there.

Once you have the fat, meat and membrane off you can go ahead and tan it, make sure you go through a degreasing step, or, for what you're doing, I'd think you can just wash it good then borax the skin.