Taxidermy 101

How do you preserve a duck for a museum? Oh, I am so glad you asked! I had my second day of taxidermy class today. (Laura filled me in that one of the instructor's daughters was sick, causing the postponement.) Today we got to work on our specimens, mine being a duck. I can't remember the name of my duck, though I do remember that it is a type of Teal. (My retention of Spanish common names is limited.) At least, that is the bird I pointed to in the field guide, and I don't think the instructor said anything to the contrary. Hehe. Today was certainly a struggle with language!

I was fine with lectures and power point presentations. Class today was really without any structure at all. People just grabbed their specimens (most of which were ducks) and went at it. Whenever we didn't know what to do to proceed, we'd pull one of the instructors aside who would then fill us in on the next step. This continued for the whole class. I am really not good at figuring out if I am asked a question or simply audience to a statement. Therefore, I tried to avoid talking to anyone else but Laura and two of the other girls.

So, here's Part 1 of how to taxidermy a duck:
First, take your newly purchased scapula and cut down the belly of the beast. Be careful not to cut too deep, or it could get pretty ugly. Luckily, I used an every so soft slice. Now, separate all the skin from the rest of the body (aka meat, fat, guts, and bones). When you come to the feet, carve the skin around the drumsticks until you have enough in your hand to slice through. Yep, cut off the leg at the hip or whatever you would like to think of it. Then separate more of the skin until you get down to the end of that bone. With that, shave off all the meat from the bone and coat it in some borax. For good measure, sprinkle everything with borax whenever you feel like it. Do the same with the other foot and then work towards the tail. Before you get too far down, STOP and just chop off the whole butt through the meat (but still don't cut through any of the skin). Yeah, I missed that little note. I went too far, and ended up getting a hole in the skin (I think where the cloaca is). Oops. Not too much damage done.

Then start working up toward the wings. Basically, they are the same as the legs. Work at the skin until you have a good chunk of the skin off the wing, then chop through the appendage, and clean off the meat. Then work on the neck. Once you can't go any further (aka head is too big to slip through the pocket of skin you are making), snap off the neck with scissors. Then slice the throat until you expose a sizable chunk of the skill. Now cut of the remaining portion of the neck and some of the skull for good measure. Using another tool (of which I am a proud new owner), scoop out the brains. Once you have that pocket emptied, break through more of the skull to pluck out the eyes, which are unbelievably huge. As if the brains weren't a juicy enough constancy, when squeezing the eyes with the tweezers, they will inevitably pop. This drains black fluid into the crevasses you just cleaned out or, if you're really lucky, your face as Laura did! Now find the tongue and yank as hard as you can until it comes out. Spend the rest of your time chopping up more sections of the skull and pulling out more organs in there and other random chunks of meat. By now you are almost down, so coat the skin in some more borax. Fill the head with cotton (which you'll have come out the eyes a bit). And then roll up some newspaper or magazine paper to stuff the rest of the body with. Fold the head down across the newly emptied body and tie it up in some more paper. Now you are done with the first step and simply reek of dead stuff. No, there were no fixatives used, so these are just dead ducks and other fowl that just smell foul. hehe

On my walk back to the apartment, I picked up some apples and other veggies at the produce store. I was seriously considering trying one of the apples in the last two blocks of my walk. I had only washed my hands twice at this point and the thought of allowing them touch anything that would soon be in my mouth staved off any hunger for quite a while. More soap, more water, more dishwashing soap, more super concentrated soap, copious amounts of water, and I finally bit into my apple. It was a good day’s work. :)