Help re Pheasants

[clabedoo]

I hope someone can help me here.
A very generous freind of mine does a lot of shooting and has today presented me with a brace of beautifully feathered cock pheasants, tails and all.

Now I know how to "leg" them to get the meat, as I used to shoot some years ago myself.

My question is - how do I preserve the "capes" so I can use the feathers for tying? They are really nicely marked and I dont want to pluck them as this would destroy the feathers.

Can anyone tell me what I need to do to stop the skins rotting etc - any help or point me in the direction of any good articles would be greatly appreciated - the simpler the better

Thanks
Clabedoo
(I know its pelled wrong)

[maharg]

Wouldn't bother mate.
Take the centre tails and a few of the rusty,black tipped feathers from the neck and bin the rest.

[salmoman]

I did mine the simple way....................... Pin them out on a board (skin up) and rub salt in.
Then leave them for a few weeks to dry. Sorted

---------- Post added at 09:05 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:04 PM ----------

ps........... mine were full skins.

[coasty]

I went to the local Fly dressers guild the other night Steve Cooper from Cookshill was there he demonstrated how to skin birds,,,

When you have skinned your pheasant leave it skin side down on a few layers of newspaper..scrape any thick fat of the skin once it has dried after a week or two. You can rub a little borax ino the skin( from a chemist) He said never put salt near a skin.. He says it will always attract moisture even from the atmosphere...

Hope that helps...


Andy

Becks and Brown Trout

[clabedoo]

Guys thanks for all the help.

Still dunno what to do?

They are hanging at mo so the meat is nice - so I still have a couple weeks to make my mind up.

As I say dont want to waste such nice feathers - I am sure I could find a use for most of them, one way or another.


Clabedoo
(I know its pelled wrong)

[flytier07]

You can always send to me-I know what to do with them!

[denzil3009]

Originally Posted by flytier07

You can always send to me-I know what to do with them!

Doesn't really help him though does it