What to do with chicken skin?

[iwltfum]

I haven't skinned a chicken since the first couple that I butchered years ago. This was a hatched Ameraucana/Astrolorp Roo that was too beautiful to waste the feathers. My wife salted and strung the skin on this frame that I made for it. Seems like so long ago that we did this. I was looking back at pictures and found it and brought up great memories of raising chickens in Colorado. I see alot of people suggesting skinning chickens instead of plucking so I figured I would share this idea about how to make use of the skin. Unfortunately, during our move to Maine, our puppy tore a chunk of feathers off this skin and it does not look quite as stunning anymore because of it. Maybe next time we hatch out a colorful clutch we'll have to do it again. Maybe I'm just a crazy chicken person, but I feel like selling something like this could cover the cost of raising the chicken. Happy Saturday everyone!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

It is beautiful. Except you said a chunk is missibg, I would almost suggest taxidermy

 

[iwltfum]

It is beautiful. Except you said a chunk is missibg, I would almost suggest taxidermy

Yeah dang puppy got to it. She's a good girl now, although she sneaks into the gut bucket occasionally these days when we are butchering. Taxidermy, like getting the whole bird stuffed? I don't know very much about it, but would you have to waste the meat and/or bones to do that?

 

[JacinLarkwell]

I think some places will be able to just do skin, but I'm not an expert. I also would figure it might be a bit more expensive just because chickens look different than wild game birds. Bit I know that you can stuff large animals without wasting the meat and that bones aren't used in the model

 

[JacinLarkwell]

If you have local places (or within a distance you would consider local) you can call and ask how you would go about getting a bird stuffed from them

 

[iwltfum]

I live an hour plus by boat from the nearest anything so taking it to someone would probably not work for me. Interesting idea though. I'm not entirely sure I would want a stuffed chicken in my house lol, but someone might!

 

[JacinLarkwell]

True. You could always frame it too. I'm probably kinda weird, but I think that it would be like having some fancy painting for the beautiful skins

 

[Painted Calls]

I have one of my guineas at the taxidermist now. I'll be sending him a Cochin hen soon.

Just call around. If the taxidermist is passionate about what they do, they should be excited to try something new. It's art.

 

[annageckos]

If you want to do taxidermy with the hides you'd have to learn to skin them right to mount them. It isn't really hard but it does take practice to not mess the skin up. I don't think there is a big market though for taxidermy chickens.
I have bought dried bird skins on Ebay to make cat toys from, people also buy them for crafts and fly tying.

 

[iwltfum]

Did the picture in my original post not show up? It was of a preserved chicken skin with feathers strung up in a wooden frame.

I have also preserved turkey wings for sale to native american arts and crafts people. You can cut the wings off and place the open flesh end in a container with a layer of borax or salt covering the bottom of the container. They come out really nice. We used to sell them to a jewelry and ceremonial wear crafter on the Ute reservation in Colorado.