I've been struggling for years to find out an easy way to skin squirrels. A buddy from Arkansas was at the house last weekend and he showed me how he does it. It was a lot easier than what I was doing, and there was a LOT less hair on the carcass to boot.

Find something very sturdy about slightly higher than head height that you can pound two 16 penny nails in about 8" apart leaqving an inch or so sticking out.

Take two pieces of para cord and make each piece about 12" long with a loop in both ends of both pieces. Get a pair of linesman pliers or a pair of pliers like you'd skin a catfish with.

Hang a piece of para cord from each nail.

Take squirrel, soak in bucket of water until it's good and wet. Squeeze off excess water. Make an incision all the way around the mid section of the squirrel right under the skin. Put it's head in one loop so it won't come out when you pull on the skin. Grab the skin at the incision on the bottom half of the squirrel. Peel it down until you get to the base of the tail. Cut thru the tail bone. Continue peeling it back until you get to the ankles on the rear feet. Take the squirrel out of the loop and put each ankle in a loop. Pull the other half of the skin off the front half of the squirrel, cutting thru the front feet at the "Wrists" and cutting it's head off. (or keep going, taking the skin off of the head if you want to cook the head too.)

Cut thru the rear legs at the ankles. Rinse off any hair from the carcass, then clean out the innards. Rinse and soak in salt water to remove any excess blood.

For me, a LOT easier than trying to stand on it's rear feet and pulling up on it's tail to skin it. Less than 5 minutes per squirrel from start to finish, and it works on cold squirrels just as well as warm ones.

That is very similar to the way I do it. A pair of diagonal wire cutters works great for quickly and easily cutting off the legs-knees and the tail cartilage.

And, don't forget to remove the scent glands. Two near the anus (maybe only on males) and one under each "armpit." Sometimes they will come off with the skin.

I think we need a skinning video....too much blood and guts?

When I did the last one, there wasn't hardly any blood n guts.

I wonder if I could get Cecil to make me one of these?

It is interesting that you say that. I've never thought much about it. Whether it is a deer, a squirrel, or even a big old catfish, I seldom see much blood. Maybe I just haven't noticed. As for guts -- if done right, they pretty much stay intact from the windpipe to the poop shoot, and just fall out.

I believe there are probably a number of Youtube videos on preparing game for the table.

For warm blooded animals, I always gut while still warm. Depending on the situation, I sometimes skin before gutting. Under the right conditions, it can help keep 99.99% of any hair/fur from getting into the meat. For things like deer, I usually skin and quarter them while hanging from my tractor front end loader, in my garage after gutting. A handful of kitty litter will sop up any blood that leaks out as it is hung by its rear knees.

As for beef or pork, that is a slightly different story. My father always collected the blood for sausage. I just let it soak into the ground.

For me, fish are the easiest. Fur bearing animals, big or small, are next. Feathered creatures, unless they are skinned, are the hardest. I hate dunking a critter in boiling water, plucking it, and then using an alcohol burner to get the last of the pin feathers out. As I've gotten older, I've also pretty much lost my desire to prepare snapping turtles.

But -- most all God's critters still make pretty tasty meals.

The Rib's I have in the oven didn't have much blood-n-guts either.

2.49 per pound on special! BBQ sauce can get kinda messy, so you'll want to watch out for that.

Heck, I haven't even found much meat on squirrel ribs!

I went to a neighbors for a cookout and brought a dozen venison backstrap butterfly steaks that were marinated in that Jack Daniels marinade. Everybody really liked them, and even tho I had a heck of a time getting my dad to try one (if it isn't beef, pork or chicken he ain't eating it). He liked it and asked if it really was venison.

He liked it a LOT better than the muskrat meatloaf that he had years ago. But, with that, if my younger sister hadn't told him what he was eating, he would have thought it was beef.

Catman, Squirrel ribs are the tooth picks.

I took a rifle with me when I went to feed tonight, found one in a Beech next to a pond:


First step...pluck a clear area under the tail, by pinching the fur between your thumb and the knife blade...easy.


This is the most important cut..start under the tail, and sever it EXCEPT for the hide.


Continue cutting down the back and around the sides, then put your foot on the tail and the attached hide:


Grip both hind legs, and pull straight up. The hide will peel right off, down to the head, freeing up the shoulders:


Remain standing on the tail/hide, and grip the remaining fur covering part of the belly and the hind legs...pull straight up once again:


Take a pair of sidecut pliers, and snip off the feet at all four ankles. cut off the head, or skin it out if you intend to eat the brains. Make a cut through the skin and remove the entrails, then one more, deeper cut to "butterfly the squirrel and open it up. That's it, all done. This last photo is before I rinsed it off, notice how clean both the animal, and my hands are:


Total time spent skinning. 3 minutes 40 seconds.

Sparkplug, excellent pics and description. That's the way I've been doin it for a lot of yrs and can't imagine an easier/cleaner way.

Tony -- good stuff!

Maybe we need to have a Pond Boss "tree rat" gathering and cook-off.

I can supply the place and cooking equipment, and probably more than a few tree rats.

Ken

Fine shot placement too.

I'm not a brain eater, so that area is my target!

Good idea.

Our local area continues to have issues with the spread of WV Deer Chronic Wasting Disease, and continuing alerts about eating squirrel brains because of diseased prions.

Worst of all, we quit eating squirrel brains quite a few years ago due to many reports of Mad Squirrel Disease.

I never ate them myself, but my mother would fry em' with eggs for breakfast....perhaps a carryover from the "good ole days", when times were tough and her family made do with what they had, out of necessity rather than choice. Far too often I fail to think about how fortunate we are today.

When it comes to providing wild game for my family, there's a big difference between "being able to", and "having to".

Good shot! That's how I have been trying to skin the red squirrels here. Neighbor is from Kentucky, and they had only Greys there. They say the reds are a LOT tougher to skin than the greys.

Maybe I'll add some pics in the morning.

Essup, are you meaning Fox squirrels when ya say Red? To me a red squirrel is between a Chipmunk and a squirell. We call em Pinies and the old mith is they kill (chew off) the fox squirrels. In this area we have a type of greys that are all black, pretty cool. A couple of yrs ago I picked up a black road kill, brought it home and laid it out in the fridge in the barn. Forgot all about it and it eventually mummified itself. I stuck it up on a beam and fooled a lot of my dumb friends till the weevels ate it up. Ken I like the idea of a PB Squirrel fest, maybe have a cook off. My mom made a squirrel stew that was to beg for.

Red squirrels are small reddish squirrels -- and as Bob said, many call them pine squirrels since a big part of their diet is pine seed. Rather nasty little critters that can cause a lot of damage.

We thankfully don't have them here.

I keep trying to cultivate our herd of fox squirrels since they are so much bigger than the greys.

Add me to the tally of the 'prefers fox squirrels' side of the fence...my Dad taught me the method above to clean squirrels and if done right it's quick and not very messy at all.

And they're great breaded and fried with biscuits and gravy!

Bob & Ken, yes, I meant Fox squirrels. We call the small red ones Piney's here too. Sorta like Perch and Bluegills being the same fish just in different parts of the country.

I didn't go hunting this morning, instead I got the floating portion of the pier actually floating in position on the pond.

The water is deeper than I thought, so now I have to run to the store and buy more 1 1/2" galvanized pipe. 8' from the end of of the pier is in 10' of water now, and the pond is 28" below full pool..... The pipes that I had were 12' long, and I haven't even started to put them into the pond bottom.

I've been taking pics during the process, so it will be documented in it's own thread.