Sunday, July 19, 2009

Snake Skinning 101

Mikey was SUCH a good teacher that I got brave enough to teach a handful of other folks today... Fawn brought her granddaughter Kenz to watch, and the snake from their front porch... Lisa brought her son Carter, who did my second snake... and Melanie came with the snake from her BACK porch... which had just eaten!!!

RULE #1 - CUT OFF THE HEAD!!! One of "my" snakes, donated by my friend Mary who got it from her neighbor... apparently HE doesn't know Rule #1!!!

So I took care of THAT!

Now that's more like it!


Part One is slitting the skin from neck to rattle...




That includes cutting sphincter muscles so the skin doesn't tear when you peel it!



Part Two is peeling!
Here you can see that Melanie's snake had a "bonus" inside...


And of course, Part Three - TAKE PICTURES!

Just kidding, Part Three is cutting at the rattle... but I didn't get a shot of that.

Part Four - check for scraps of flesh on the skin...


Part Five - Deciding what to make out of your skin ;)
Melanie can't decide between a bikini...

Or a cell phone holder...


Part Six - Into the bags they go, in a mix of half rubbing alcohol, half glycerine for the first day... after that it's straight glycerine for 3-4 days.


And Part Seven - at least, if Melanie is involved! SNACK!!! Melanie thought a jelly roll would be an appropriate snack for a snake-skinning class... once sliced, it does kinda resemble a coiled snake...

oh well, at least it tasted good!

3 comments:

Mikey said...

I cracked up when I read rule #1, lmao!! And you should have mentioned what you DO with the head to properly dispose of it (if you can't bury it, put it in a jar or container in the garbage. I think. )
Anyway, very cool!! You did a good job!! You guys are nuts! lol, can't wait to see how they turn out!

BB said...

OMG... that was some post!!! Heh... am afraid I won't be lining up to skin our 'joe blakes'... I shudder at the sight of them. Even dead!
:-)
BB

Debby said...

Okay. Susan. Being perfectly clear here. When I get myself to Arizona, I DO NOT WANT TO PLAY WITH RATTLESNAKES. Dead or alive, heads on, heads off. Gotta say, I'm even a little turned off by the jelly roll.