Anyone here skin ducks rather than pluck them?

FLHTCUI said:
I used to pluck every bird.
Now its just the fat Mallards .
The rest get breasted out and if I fancy drum sticks the legs and thighs get cut out as well.
Easy peazie.
Rob
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What he says...I only pluck a few prime mallards, pintail, Canvasback and redheads. Scaup pluck up very nice but Im not nuts about eating them.

Another question for the duck pluckers. Ever tried waxing your birds with paraffin wax melted in hot water. makes the job a cinch! I find the smell of singed feathers unpleasant. Maybe because I'm a firefighter and this smell association reminds me of a toasted human...
 
I just about recanted yesterday my previous testimony that I pluck all ducks.

Came home with five mallards and one was a newly fledged young one with nothing but pinfeathers against the skin. Jeez. What a pain to pluck. But I stuck to it and got 'er done.
 
the spank said:
People still pluck ducks?? We slit the skin open on the breasts and filet the breast meat, geese too.
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hoytcanon said:
Ted, all we have done for the past thirty years is slit the breast skin open, work it back over the breast meat with our thumbs and then cut the breast patties out. There are lot of things you can do with those patties, including jerky and pepperettes. A decade of plucking was enough for me... gave it up for lent.
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I have been a dedicated breast man for years.....

That being said, the young lad and I went out for a pond hunt at camp this past weekend and I took my first waterfowl birds in his presence (4 mallards)....

We got back to camp and, as he had no skinning / plucking experience, and I had an over abundance of stuffing for sunday’s Turkey, we plucked and gutted them together..... they are now stuffed and frozen and awaiting roasting.....

Typically though, I breast all of my waterfowl and make up a big batch of Jerky at year’s end....
 
Ugh! I used to like the smell. Thanks for what you do by the way.

M12shooter said:
What he says...I only pluck a few prime mallards, pintail, Canvasback and redheads. Scaup pluck up very nice but Im not nuts about eating them.

Another question for the duck pluckers. Ever tried waxing your birds with paraffin wax melted in hot water. makes the job a cinch! I find the smell of singed feathers unpleasant. Maybe because I'm a firefighter and this smell association reminds me of a toasted human...
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I've never plucked ducks or geese but I think that I should give it a try. Change things up a little. Besides, if you freeze them it's better protection for the meat. You could always peel it off later.
 
A Time to skin and a Time to pluck.
for me there are several considerations that help me decide how I would dress the bird.
if its a bit later in the season and the birds have a nice layer of fat on them and have finished the new feather growth cycle , meaning there are not many blood/ pinfeathers. in that case I would pluck. if it's a clean shot with little meat damage i leave the bird whole pluck and cook it medium rare.
if its early season , birds have little fat on them, lots of pin feathers or lots of shot in the meat than i will skin the meat out.
i usually have a plan in my mind already as to how i would cook the bird as soon as i start to expose the skin on the breast by plucking a few feathers.
by looking at the bird i get an idea as too what cooking method would work best for it.
for example a young fat duck that has very little meat damage would deserve to be plucked and enjoyed as a roasted bird.
for an old none fatty canada goose i may just skin, use the breast for making burger, the legs and thighs may go for a crock pot recipe and wings will usually be used for my goose buffalo wings recipe.
if its a younger goose that looks more "tender" i may still skin out the breasts but instead of turning them into burger i may decide to marinade and make some kabobs for the BBQ.
my point is that it really depends on the bird as to how i field dress it.
 
My buddy skins them and cooks them whole to make meat sauce. I breast out early season puddles and divers but will always pluck late season mallards for their fat.
 
Have not hunted duck yet but from my expierience with killing and processing our own chickens I'd say plucking and keeping the skin and fat on will be worth the work, the one time I helped process and skin family members chickens I saw how much fat was thrown out. No beautiful yellow stock was had from that batch of birds.
 
Not all ducks need to be plucked, and some are certainly not worth the effort. But to throw away everything but the breast meat is disrespectful and wasteful. I hope it's only because people are ignorant or just don't know how to cook, not because they're that lazy. It's really easy to harvest legs and thighs, at least. i also use the gizzards, livers and hearts. Takes about 30 seconds more to do. And they are good food.
 
Butcherbill said:
Have not hunted duck yet but from my expierience with killing and processing our own chickens I'd say plucking and keeping the skin and fat on will be worth the work, the one time I helped process and skin family members chickens I saw how much fat was thrown out. No beautiful yellow stock was had from that batch of birds.
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Ducks and geese do not pluck anywhere near as easy as chickens, pheasants, turkeys and birds of soft feather types. A friend of mine had a pheasant hunting farm operation and we assumed his commercial cleaning equipment would make cleaning our ducks a piece of cake. Boy were we wrong?! Even with a commercial plucker it was a very time consuming lesson in frustration. I havent plucked a duck or goose now in 30 years.
 
Anyone ever trying boiling there goose? remove the back cut the legs & boil everything head heart liver, nothing goes to waste were i live, everyone is different though right.
baked goose is good as well.
 
I boil up a big canning pot of water, drop in a few cubes of parrafin wax, and dip my ducks in that. Then dunk in cold water and just peel the feathers off like an orange
 
sometimes skinnin is alot of trouble.. on occasion, bluebills can have this crazy extremely tough thick fat on their back ! we couldn't cut through with a fillet knife .... ahhhhh pluck it

i have a friend thats in no hurry to skin em ... sometimes they sit 3 to 5 days in his backyard before he getts to em ( he says their just fine and has no problem eaten them ) i stopped having supper at his place after that ..
 
Plucking is a lot easier if done right after the bird is shot. Seems the feathers tighten in once the bird cools off.
Mallards and Canada geese always get plucked on our hunts.
 
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