9-23-05
Anyone,
Is there any other way to clean out the meat and fat on a birds neck? WITH OUT MAKEING SO MANY HOLES. I try to be so careful and it bugs me to leave anything in there.
Thank U
lisa
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Lisa, Are you using a wire wheel with a soft bristle? If not, find one! I invert the neck and wire wheel very lightly. Take your time with it since the neck skin is thin. You WILL make small holes but they usually don't affect the mount. You may need to sew one or two, so what! Wire wheeling takes time to master the "touch".
Good Luck.
is to have a wet skin. Usually during the skinning process the inner membrane seems to dry and toughen. I usually dunk my skins in water for a moment after skinning to re-wet this membrane. Then pat them out on towel to remove excess water. Makes wire-wheeling SOO much quicker. I also keep a squirt bottle of soapy water handy.
Jon~
try avoiding the thinnest part of the bird neck, which is the throat. The skin here as well as the entire length of the bird is VERY thin. Also there are no feather quills here. I don't think the bird neck is thin-skinned otherwise. There are definately areas of the bird that take more delicate fleshing, such as the tail and anal area. If you can flesh this area, you can flesh ANY part of the bird, including the neck. On the other hand, if you are trying to flesh the neck leaving the original head attached, and trying to flesh the entire neck through a relief cut, I can understand your dilemma. Before switching to artificial heads and rebuilding the original with epoxy, I must have been doing a lousy job fleshing the neck. If you're not removing the head, you're just not doing as good a job of fleshing. It is so much easier to flesh the neck area, and the entire bird for that matter with the head removed. As stated above, Go buy a wire wheel that is soft for ducks and geese, and buy a firmer wheel for turkeys, sea ducks, and upland birds. I've seen brand new fleshers, that had wire wheels that you could flesh an elephant skin with, not a Wood Duck. You may have to purchase an after-market wheel, just find one that you can apply your hand to (while the motor is spinning) without burning your hand. You can also take a wire cutter and remove all the long bristles from the wheel. Before I use a new wheel, I take a brick and a flat file to it (while spinning) and work all the burrs out. I hope this helps, and if you have any further questions, please feel free to post up or email me.
One thing that will help is the method you wheel the neck. I've posted this before, but it's been a while.
Start at the first quarter inch of skin. where the bill cut is made.
Make sure the wheel is turning toward the front of the head. work back, but never more than a quarter to half inch at a time. This prevents build up of membranes and avoids ripping the skin and making holes.