I am curious how to skin out the pads of small/medium animals such as coons, coyotes, and skunks? I have skinned out 2 skunks (sans stink!) and two coons and I cut the feet at the joint just above the paws/toes...wonderin how to get around the pads without ruining them for full body mounts. Thanks.
Return to Beginners Category Menu
You really have to go slow til you get the hang of it. Look at the anatomy of the foot from the outside before you skin. On front feet, the "thumb" is high above the toe. You must detach it first when you are skinning or you will pull it through. I like to hang the specimen, so the weight of the skin is assisting me in pulling down. Work down to the toes. I often use deer ear openers to push the skin down. When you get to the toes, needle nose pliers are useful in holding the bone, while skinning the toe. Do each outside toe, then the two long ones in the center. Take side cutters and detach toe from the claw at the last joint. After skinning the animal, take a scapel and remove the gristly material from the large foot pad. Just take your time, and skin out the large pad on each foot. After you have done a few, you will understand. On many animals, like coyotes, the foot is too large to totally invert through the leg. Skin down to below the knee and saw off the lower leg bone. Then make a relief cut on the back of the leg, and skin the foot through this opening. Hope this helps.
I have done one of my raccoons...what i did was clip the toes right at the end joints...the first knuckle on our fingers behind the nail...skunks tend to be smaller so i am assuming the process would be the same...the pads are a bit more difficult to work around...trying not to tear away from the skin/fur so i have no unneccesary (did i spell that right?) stitching. Also got my first fox today...a HUGE pup!
he has to be the size of a 5 month old Lab or sheperd...here is a picture.
http://i22.ebayimg.com/01/i/07/b0/30/42_2.JPG
I cut through the center of all the pads on all mammels. It gives me better access to the toes during skinning. I can skin out a bear foot for example, in about 5 minutes. When the mount is completed and I do the finish work I rebuild the pads and cover the seam and texture it. I mix some grout or powdered clay in the epoxy before rebuilding them. This helps keep the pad from being to shiny and helps with the texturing. It needs to be rebuilt anyway. You always get a little shrinkage there, no matter how good it is fleshed. It takes a liitle longer to finish but you save a lot more time during skinning and mounting.