Coyote skinning, any good videos/pics showing how to do ears?

MAArcher

New member
I saw a video on youtube of a guy skinning a coyote in under four minutes. But the video wasn't great quality and i couldn't see how he does the ears.

The first coyote I tried to skin, I did it in the woods just after it was shot and skinned it down to the head then cut the head off. But it took me forever to try and skin the head and in the end I botched it up, loosing half the years and poking some holes. Also, how much if any of the lips do you leave on?

Are there any clear videos or pictures of skinning out the head?

Thanks
 
You can watch skinning of coon, Fox, whatever. They are basically the same when it comes to the head. A grey Fox is harder on the head because it's ears are so big and it is hard to get it to "roll" over them sometimes, especially cold. Did you hang the yote when you skinned it?? The more pressure you can pull down on them the better. You will see the ear butts when you get to them. Same with the eyes. Leave no bottom lip.
 
I can't tell, does he actually skin the ears in this video, or is he leaving the cartilage in the ear?

edit: link waaaaaay too long
 
Last edited by a moderator:


This is something i did or made for the same question.

The trick is during the skinning process, don't cut the head off.. That makes it harder.. lol

Sorry,..
WHne you are skinning, and you get it down the high neck and almost the ears.. Pull and pull like crazy, use your weight.
The skin will pull down and expose the ears. use a knife to skin the ears out seperating the cartilage and the flesh until you have about an inch then go back and cut the cartilage at the base. (very usefull later)

Keep skinning until you skin to where you think you are about to get the eyelid to pop out, then do the other and finsh the other eye first, then come back to the first one and sking around the mouth. Try and get all of the lips. (it doesn't matter if you do, it's just practice for when you get one that you want to mount later.
when the lower jaw is skinned to the k-9's cut it off.
Skin out to the nose and then seperate, and put it in trash compactor bags.. Trust me, use these. They don't leak and you can spray flee spray in there, and tie it closed and put it in the freezer and not worry about leaking.

Then when you are fleshing, only cut off any larger than the rest chuncks of meat off the face to the ears.. The thin meat is fine. Leave the lips alone and get the extra catilage out of the nose so it feels thin.. Then use a pair of pliars like i do in the video to just pull it out... done (this is why i skin out and leave an inch of cartilage in the skinning process. Make sure to take that small flat plate of cartilage near the ear off and flesh the rest of it.

just remove the fat and meat.. should only take about 10 min. any more than that and you are wasting time.

make sure you wash and brush them first. Sewing holes is teadous, but making more holes that didn't have to be there, is annoying..

Good luck and it takes practice.. Keep doing it to the coyotes, that way it doesn't matter if you make a mistake and you will be good at it before you get or try a cat..
 
I remove the cartilage during skinning because I have the time to do so. I find it is a big advantage having the full weight of the hanging animal to do this. Here is a simplified method that works great on fox but is much harder to do on coyotes: Fur Harvesters ear cartilage removal.

Here are a few pictures of that method in action to give a better idea:

ears.jpg


ears2.jpg


and here is a decent close up video of the skinned pelt method (maximize video for best viewing):


 
I don't know as there is any way to preserve the "inside" of the ear but maybe you could carefully separate the inner and outer ear and borax the snot out of it prior to tanning. Not sure the tanning process will work well with the stiff cartilage inside. Any wall hangers I've seen are the same as all other pelts - outer ear fur stays with the pelt, inner ear and cartilage are removed during skinning.
 
For selling to auction i leave cartilage in. when they are on the stretchers for a week with fans blowing the ears dry out pretty good. then i pin the ears down. till they are ready to ship
 
I tan most of my own stuff. I leave a good bit of the cartilage in for wall hangers. I then form it into the shape, or position rather, as the hide dries. You get a better looking wall hanger this way. I just did an ear turning tutorial over on trapperman.com in the trapping only section if you want to see how I do it.
 
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