I am about to skin some birds as I use the feathers for fly tying but I cant find sound advice on what to do with the skins once there off. Do I remove the fat then use borax or will borax do it for me, do i need to use borax or could i use something else insted and do i need to wash the skins in any way befor or after and stage of skinning, oh and is borax poisonous?.
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remove as much of the meat and fat as you possibly can with sissors or a dull butter knife. Make sure you get the meat out of the wings. You can cut the wings open on the bottom side and flesh that way. Then you should wash the skins in hot water with dawn dish detergent. Get a scrub brush and scrub the skin side to remove additional fat deposits. Then blow dry the feathers ( I spin my birds in the washing machine on the spin cycle to remove excess water). Then you will use 20 mule team borax on the skin side.. be quite generous. Lay the skin out flat to dry for a week or so.
after they are dried, you can remove the excess borax and store the skins flat in a platic sealable container. Throw a few mothballs in with them just to be safe.
I keep extra skins, turkey and pheasant parts in tupperware containers for the birds I get that need a little help.
As far as I know borax is no more poisonous than regular laundry detergent. I wouldn't eat it.. but I wouldn't worry too much about breathing the dust or general skin contact.
Hope this helps,
Jon
This has cleared up heaps for me, thank you very much.