BEFORE you flesh is my ?. Ive fleshed alot of birds, ive only been using the wheel for a few years and have lot similar fleshing issues like some others in the forum, but my question is what is best to do prior to fleshing, after skinning do you immmediately take your specimen to the wheel ( or scissors), or, stop and wash it first? Ive tried both and it seems washing prior made the fat come off easier, fat did't stick to the feathers as much, but made the skin much more fragile. just looking to see what others do, cause I can pretty much skin a bird hole free, but that flesher ***'# kicks my *** just about every time.
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After skinning, I score the fat between the feather tracts with knife, scissor, wire wheel, wash with blood out and the soak and wash with dawn.
I skin the bird, remove any meat and larger pieces of fat from the skin, I scissor off the fat around the tail becasue I have problems with the wheel in that area, then I wheel the bird, wash in Dawn, rinse many times, and then freeze for later. See suggestions on fleshing below.
I wire wheel it right after skinning. Then soak it in soapy water for a couple minutes then wheel it again. Its amazing how much more you get the second time. I then, of course, do the final wash and rinse.
If I have a bird that I am worried about getting blood stains on, I may wash before I wheel. This is to cut down on the chance of dried on blood stains. Most times though- skin, trim the meat eye flesh vent and tail, wheel, and wash.
skin and wash when the birds come into the shop.on the day i mount them i place them in warm water to thaw while i am getting other odds and ends together.the bird will thaw during this time.i take it directly out of the warm water and degrease it.after im done i rinse the bird in the warm water to get the biggest portion of loose fat off the bird and then drain the sink.i then refill the sink with warm to hot water and dawn mixture.the birds degrease alot better to me if they are warm and it seems to cause less pulling on the skin that way.