How do you skin a raccoon?

Answer 1

To skin a raccoon. The easiest way to learn is to take a trapping education class or talk to a fur buyer in your area.

Start by cutting from the anus down the inside of each leg and out the heel. Skin around the leg and peel it down.

Next cut from the anus down the length of the tail. Skin around the tail as far as you can then pull the tail from the skin.

From here I hang the coon by the back legs. Pull on the skin, and it should easily come down. You may have to help by cutting in some places.

When you get to the front legs, run your finger through the forward side of the front legs and pull the skin from the leg cutting it at the end.

When you get to the head, you will cut downward towards the skull to separate the ears from the skull.

Cut the same way for the eyes. Try to keep the black ring around the eyes attached to the skin.

Finally pull down and cut the nose off keeping it attached to the skin. Turn inside out and admire your work!

Answer 2

I skin them cased. Long incisions are ugly and a dorsal cut on a chipmunk, if you're not a microsurgeon, is going to show up when sewn.

The tails, I split to the very tip and then "slip" the tailbone out.

Rear feet to metatarsal, front feet to wrists. I do use relief cuts on the fronts so I can stretch the front legskins after tanning. I do make a cut through each (front and rear) main foot-pad during the skin-out process, because this is where the leg wire would go anyway, or regardless you'll want the paw open for a rug, so it's no big deal.

I skin the head by starting under the nose (inside the lip). Leave lots of lip. The cheeks have a skin-lined inner pouch; it is safe to cut through this. The cheeks are very easy to grasp and you'll have the face done in no time. You can skin all the way to the front of the eye this way, and do the entire lower jaw + chin.

I turn ears by injecting each ear with approx. .35 cc of sterile .9% saline using a 29 gauge needle (got this stuff for my cat, they are Rx only). The closest you can get is a 25 gauge, non-rx. You can use contact lens saline solution for the injection; water is hypotonic and not recommended. Injection point is the base of the ear; I work the bolus of saline up to the tip. Then split with a scalpel blade slowly from the inside.

(side note, I have a LOT of veterinary experience and love to do super fine detail work like this. If you have clumsy grip, etc, this will NOT work out for you, you'll have to use traditional turning and splitting methods)

That injection technique also works well for rehydrating freezer-burn.

The eyes, lips, and nose are very easy; these are small animals and most of the time, being a little rough on the fleshing also doubles for turning.

I do salt as I go and the acid bath is always sitting next to me, so as soon as the little guys are skinned and fleshed, into the acid bath they go. I have never had a bona fide slip from a properly harvested chipmunk.

You can also use this method for mice and other tinies.

Time is approx. 45 minutes per animal from on the carcass to in the acid bath. I am not fast, I am thorough.

The skins turn out beautiful. Play around. Even if you mess up a few, those messed up few could be turned into a darling little wallet or something else odd and unique