Uploaded by WOODLANDSTV on Dec 29, 2011
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/ Our 100th film! Before skinning and cooking it, Sean Collins describes the destructive nature of the grey squirrel and its effect on the native red squirrel. He also describes their effect on tree bark. In the next film he goes about skinning the squirrel
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/ Skinning a squirrel with tips on knives to use, hygiene, and preventing damage to the internal organs. Survival expert Sean Collins prepares a squirrel for cooking.
http://www.woodlands.co.uk/ How to gut a squirrel. Gutting a squirrel by Sean Collins. Firstly Sean pinches the skin on the belly of the squirrel to make an incision. He then cuts back towards the reproductive organs and removes the testicles . Sean also discusses how to examine the internal organs for signs of disease or ill health in the animal. After checking the liver and kidneys he removes the digestive tract, followed by the heart and lungs, and removal of the head. Finally he discusses hyqiene prior to cooking.
Nice English YouTube Videos... Never too late to learn something... destructive nature of the grey squirrel and its effect on the native red squirrel. Also discusses adverse effect on tree bark... Monte
Yikes. This guy makes cleaning a squirrel much more difficult and time consuming than it needs to be. To clean a squirrel quickly without getting hair, dirt or blood over everything is easy. I learned it from my dad and granddad who grew up hunting squirrel for the dinner table during the depression.
ReplyDeleteHere's how North East Iowa squirrel hunters who grew up harvesting squirrels for the dinner table process the animal.
With practice you can process a squirrel in about a minute's time.
Hold the squirrel by the tail's base and bend back towards the head. Make an incision just above the anus, cutting through the tailbone, but not severing the tail's skin from the body. With your knife separate a little more skin from the body just up from the tail.
Now - grab the squirrel by the back legs. Step on the tail and pull up on the backfeet with one hand. The skin will peel down the body like a banana. Pull until the lower body is exposed. The head and front feet will be inside the skin.
With your knife edge get a little skin flap going on the triangle of skin that still exists on the belly and back legs. While still standing on the tail, pull up on the triangle of skin and pull using both hands until the back legs muscles are free of skin. Make sure not to pull so hard as to pull the back feet from the skin.
You now have an exposed body between the tail you are standing on and the skin you have in your hand above the exposed body.
With your foot still on the tail, cut through the ankles of the back legs holding onto the opposite back leg during each slice. Now hang on to the exposed body and take your knife and slice the exposed wrist bones of the front feet and decapitate, all while still holding the skin-free back legs and stepping on the tail. A sharp pocket knife will quickly cut through the wrists and neck with one or two firm slices of your pocket knife.
You now have the intact body, totally clean of hair and free from dirt and debris from the ground.
Take the body torso in one hand, belly up. Make incisions to cut the genetailia off. Remove gentalia. Then take your pocket knife and press down at the pelvic center cutting the pelvic bone in two, top to bottom. It doesn't take much to bust through the thin bone. Bend the back legs together to help open the body cavity, then slide your knife blade inside the abdomen skin with the blade on the inside of the skin with the sharp edge out. Slit the skin up to the rib cage and then directly up through the center of the rib cage to the neck opening.
Holding the squirrel by one back leg, bending it back to expose the inards, pinch the opening of the large intestine at the anus and pull the guts down and out, using one finger to pull down through the chest cavity to get the heart and lungs. It will all easily drop out of the body cavity in one mass, with gravity and a little help onto the ground.
You're pretty much done with the exception of washing the carcass with water and final cut up work for the frying pan.
You do all of this while standing, with the squirrel never touching the ground.
Very fast. Very clean. And little mess.
You may want to have an assistant to help during your first attempt. With a little practice, you'll find this method the preferred way to clean a squirrel.
I remember showing some boys from southern Iowa how to do this when I was in college. They were totally amazed.
Some of the best, most nutricious, low choloestrol meat available.
Another tip for squirrel hunters.
The easy way to carry you squirrel kill is to cut a sharp stick about the size of a pencil when you get into the woods. When you get a squirrel, pull down on the outside toes of one of the back feet, tearing the outside toes down to expose tendons of the back foot. Slip your stick through the tendons and you have an easy way to tote your squirrels around.
Roger B.
Roger - OUTSTANDING TIPS!!!
ReplyDeleteThat's much easier...
You never quit impressing me,
Regards
Monte