How to skin deer legs for the hockskins

**I have noticed that a few of my materials on this blog has been pasted on other pages. I have absolutely no problem with sharing knowledge and information, but please, please give credit where credit's due. To pass on my stuff as yours is just bad manners **

As promised in the previous post, here's a tutorial on how to skin deer legs to get their wonderful hockskins, with the hoofs attached. "Why bother", I hear you ask, so I answer "Why not?" plus I think once tanned and softened, they make good cases for small electronic gadgets!


Tutorial on skinning deer hock with hoof attached

Well, obviously get yourself a nice deer hock, preferably a fresh one. This particular one is about 10 days old (from being cut off the deer) but was stored in a baggie and buried under the snow, so for all intent and purposes, it's *fresh*.

Also, be ready to make a LOT of mess, especially with your first try. The first time I skinned a deer hock it took me close to 2 hours, but after a few tries, I can easily skin it in under 30 mins. The trick is NOT to be discouraged, and KEEP ON TRYING! If you've got roomates who are squeamish, best do it outdoors and out of sight LOL. Considering the deer was heavily in rut when we got him, the hocks smells.... rutty! personally I find the smell of deer rut quite pleasant; Eau de Deer!

I usually have a lot of spectators when I work on deer bits ... there's a couple of juvenile magpies who always get excited and wait patiently for me to leave deer scraps for them afterwards. That is if they aren't mobbed by the chickadees and nuthatches first!

I usually don't use the saw hatchet or scraper at this point, but it's nice to have them ready JUST in case. With most of my projects my mini kukri and the whetstone has served me very very well.

Depending on where you want the hoofs to appear, decide on where to make the initial long incision. If you want:

(1) the Dew Hoofs to be close together, slit the front, along the deer tibia all the way down to the cleft between the main hoofs.
(2) In my case, I prefer to have the dew hoofs on the side, with the main hoofs in the middle, thus I incised down the back of the tibia, almost to the soft tissue between the two dew hoofs.

Here's a couple rough sketches on what I was nattering above:

It depends on how you normally skin, I guess, but I have always found that it's easier to cut the slit down 1 inch at a time, then pull the edges down towards the hoof, and quickly sliding the knife around the bone through stretched tissues. That way I can usually skin most of the hock down to the dew hoof in about 5 minutes.

Imagine unzipping a jacket around the deer tibia, and using your knife to separate the bone and skin.

Basically do the same when you reach the ankle joint.

Once you reached the ankle is where it gets a bit trickier. Skin around as much as you can until you expose the joint where the needle bone (I think that's what they're called) joins the sides of the tibia. There's one on either side, as this bone is what connects the dew hoofs to the main skeleton.

Skin the hock until you very nearly reach the point where the dew hoof and hide meet. At this point, take a break and admire your work (you've worked hard!) and try to visualise how the needle bones are connected to the tibia ... feel around with your fingers, move the dew hoof and try to locate the joint. It feels like a little grove-y knucle-y ring. Now, place the edge of your knife and severe the ligaments that holds the needle bone and the tibia at the tibia/long pastern joint (in horses it's called the "fetlock joint"). Should be a fairly easy cut.

Skin the leg until you nearly reach the dew hoof ... and feel around for the joints

Can you see the joints? They two bumpy protuberances on either side of the tibia. Look closer and you can see the groove ringing the joint as well. Place your knife blade there!

An EASY cut once you've located the right place.

Once you've separated the joints that connect the needle bones from the tibia/long pastern joint, slice between the needle and long pastern, working carefully down until the skin with the needle bone (and dew hoofs) are detached from the the long pastern.

see that the skin, with the dew hoof and needle bone are well off the long pastern.

Now, take a deep breath and start skinning downwards. It gets a bit harder here, as you have to work down and expose the full length of the flexor tendon that underlines the long pastern. You'll be removing a lot of cartilageneous tissues as well.

Expose the flexor tendon

Now flip the leg on it's side and continue skinning the front of the leg until you meet the fold of skin that comes between the hoof toes.

Skin the front of the leg until you meet the skin fold

Don't be afraid! It looks messy, but it's worth the work.

Stop for a bit, and place the leg on your lap with the back facing up. Carefully, with your knife blade facing you, insert the blade into the foot pad, the point between the skin and paddy tissues, and cut further down towards the hoof, be careful not to poke a hole into the opposite skin fold on the front of the leg. It is a bit tricky - took me 3 leg skinning to figure out this trick.

 

When you're done, hold up the hock skin and you can see the dew hoofs on the side, hoofs in the front and the tibia bone just hanging down behind it

Nearly there!

Drape the tibia on your lap and pull the skin away towards the hoof (you know, like peeling a banana) and skin on the front of the leg, you know. the tricky fold between the long pasterns. This, I found, is the hardest part in the leg skinning. I kept puncturing the fold. Skin as far down towards the hoof as possible, as remember, we have to remove the short pastern and coffin bones later on!

Yeah, I accidentally poked a hole in the fold. You can see the hair follicles in that but between the long pasterns.

Just so I don't have to deal with the tibia any longer, I separate the project from the tibia at the fetlock joint. Just cut between the tibia and long pasterns. Don't stab yourself LOL, it's a bit harder going than cutting the needle bone joint.

There's a lot of cartilage, joint capsule, tendons and ligaments as this is a load bearing joint, unlike the dew hoofs. Just be patient!

Aaaand we're through!

I saved the tibia to render oil from the marrow, as I'm a cheap bastard and don't want to pay big bucks for good quality Neatsfoot oil when I can make my own deersfoot oil.

As I'm skinning 8 of these, I stop at this point, put the hock skin with them bones still in it in a baggie and pop them in the freezer for when I can sit down and skin and de-bone all 8 in one sitting.  If you recall my previous tutorial, it takes a bit of work to debone the hoof, so I'd rather do it indoors with good music playing ... and be warm. It's -7 deg C today and I'm getting a bit chilly :)

Long and short pasterns, coffin bone and needle bone yet to be removed!

Watch this space .. will be posting another tutorial on how to skin and debone!

Of course, if you're interested in only keeping the dew hoofs and not the main hoof, you can start cutting the hockskin just at the boundary where hoof starts and hide ends, and start separating the bones out. If you're keeping the hoofs, then leave it as is and wait for the next step ....

Other links that might interest you:

Deer hock pouch
Deer hock pouch, iteration 2; with belt loop
Bark tanning hair on deer hide
Softening bark tanned hair on deer hide
How to remove the pasterns and coffin bone from a deer foot
Salt Curing deer hides for storage
How to degrease deer bones for making tools
Alum tawing white tail hair on neck skin
Soap/Oil tanning hoof-on, hair-on, Mule Deer hockskin
Processing green deer hide into .... 
Wild Foods: Compilation

White tail buck hock skins: horrors of disarticulating hoofs from the toe bones.

In skinning several deers this past couple of years I noticed how nice and thick the deer hock skins are. This year I salvaged the hocks to try get the skins to egg/brain tan, and learn how to remove the bone inside the hoof so I can preserve it.

First step, is of course, getting a deer leg. My first try in skinning a hock, I didn't really document the process very much, until a friend pointed out that he's been trying without much success and would appreciate a run through of the process

Start with a white tail deer hock

Here is where I waved a magic wand, and like Blue Peter proclaim: "Here's one I made earlier!" It requires a certain technique and self restrain to skin a hock, as there is very little meat and fat between the innards and the skin ... and with a sharp knife you can really slice the leg skins (not to mention yourself) into bits. The leg skinning tutorial will be written up and posted in a couple of days :)

What they look like after skinning. I left the main hoofs on the bone, only have the dew hoofs attached to the leg skin

So what did I do with the skins? Well, I've got 4 from the white tail buck ... and just replicating some process used on the mule buck hide I tanned earlier, I decided to salt it and dry it; leave it to cure for at least a couple of months before I flesh, tan and work it. I prefer to work hides as soon as they're skinned though, but with meat to butcher it's best to leave 'em be. You don't necessarily have to salt it; some people even just air dry the skins while waiting for a warmer day to process it.

Hock skins laid flat, flesh side up, and covered in salt. Don't be stingy with the salt, either!

Took about a week (in nearly freezing temperatures) for the hock skins to dry up. Be sure you put them somewhere magpies can't reach! I nearly lost one of them to a birdy, before it decided that the skins are too salty for consumption.

After a week outdoors; dried nicely eventhough the temperature is about freezing.

With it dried, it just put them in a bag and stash it somewhere in the store room :) I considered storing it outside, but mice have a habit of nomming dried hides, I was told.

This is what they look like when dry: the hide colour is preserved ( so far) and they're as hard as plywood! Some people just flesh it and turn it into hair on rawhide and make stuff, but I figure I might as well use them as test skins for different tanning method.

Once dried, they're hard as wood!

They look really nice!

Dew hoofs.

Tutorial on how to remove hoof from leg bone

Ok, now here comes the tutorial bit. First of all, like any good engineer, I tried to get a blueprint of the anatomical structures in a deer foot. Since I can't really find a proper "deer foot diagram" I substituted a horse foot anatomy pic form a miniature horse grooming website here.

Actually this is an anatomical drawing of a horse's foot, but since it's close enough in structure to deer, it'll have to do.

Now, we get the hoofed, skinless leg from above, a sharp knife and a whetstone. It might get a bit messy, so put some newspaper underneath, unless you're working outside with magpies to clean up the bits after you.

Hoofs on the bone, knife and whetstone. And yes, that is a rubber band on the haft. Helps with my grip.

My cat always gets a bit *feral* when I work with deer bits indoors. They fancy themselves big wild tigers, instead of fluffy cuddle cat when they get a sniff of deer.

Cat decided to be a Nosy Ned and get into the way.

After shooing the fluffiness away, take the deer leg with the hoof pointing forward and start pushing the blade into the space between the skin and bone. Takes a bit of work with a 3 week old hoof, I imagine it would be much easier to do when the leg is fresh. It's like trying to cut through rubber.

Running the blade along the inner surface of the hoof. Think of running a blade around a (very rubbery) cake in it's tin to dislodge it.

When you reach the middle of the two hoofs, very carefully try to poke the knife blade between the two long pastern bones (refer diagram above) and the hoof cartilage of the two hoofs without damaging the flap of skin holding the hoof.

Run the blade between the skin and the long pastern bones. Think about the fold of skin between fingers ...

Continue sliding the blade tip all around the bone (short pastern) and go as deep into the hoof as possible. The idea is to detach the cartilage gluing the coffin bone the the hoof, without causing too much of a mess of the hoof.

You're cutting through some really rubbery cartilage here - sharp, relatively strong blade is recommended.

If your hoof is fresh, the easier the process should be, as the cartilage and tendons will be quite soft still. If it's about three weeks old, it gets really tough and rubbery. If you dried the hocks, rehydrate them first! In the picture below I've worked the blade down and gently twist the knife to expose the top of the short pastern bone.

Since the hoof is relatively fresh (only 3 weeks old) it is flexible enough to "give" as you twist the blade to loosen the hoof from the coffin bone (refer to anatomy pic)

The joint of the short and long pastern is roughly above where the hide ends and the hoof begins.

View from the back of the leg: Exposing the flexor tendon connecting the long and short pastern

Just because I'm curious about the anatomy, I decided to slice through the plantar cushion and hoof pad of that particular hoof, just to see if I can locate the navicular bone, which marks the joint between short pastern and coffin bone.

Cutting through the rubbery footpad of the hoof to expose the joint connecting the short pastern and coffin bone. You don't really have to do this, but I just wanted to see how deep within the hoof the joint is.

Peeling back the hoof pad (very nice rubbery thing! I wonder if I should glue some at the bottom of moccasins for traction?) exposes the coffin bone and short pastern joint. Just so I can have a better grip on the project, I decided to separate this two, cutting neatly through the joint.

Cutting away a flap of hoof pad to expose the navicular bone. At this point I decided to cut away the hoof from the leg bone at that joint.

The joint of the short pastern exposed after you cut away most of the cartilage under it.

Hoof is detached!

The hoof (with coffin bone still in it) is detached from the leg, but still attached by a flap of skin at the front. Now that I know roughly how deep the joint is, I do the same with the other hoof without cutting through the sole or removing the hoof pad.

Do the same with the other hoof, but without cutting the flap on the hoof pads.

A few minutes later .... I got two hoofs with coffin bones inside, all detached from the leg. At this point I chucked the leg bone back into the freezer for getting the deer Neatsfoot oil some other day.

Both hoofs out.

Once the short pastern is out of the way, it's much easier to work the blade around the "rubbery cake" inside the hoof. I was thinking of using a scalpel at this point, but too lazy to get up (LOL) so I just resharpened my knife and work it. To be honest, I think the scalpel blade would have broken with the kind of pressure I'm putting. I gotta admit it takes a bit of work and technique to get the coffin bone out. That's why I figure I practice on this leg before I work on a full hockskin attached.

Now it's more sliding the blade along the inner surface of the hoof to loosen the coffin bone from the hoof. Takes a bit of trial and error, but finally got there!

It's kinda satisfying when the coffin bone finally popped out of the hoof. Some people actually resort to using a couple of pliers (one holding the hoof, and the other gripping the bone) and twisting, like they do here or even to slicing the bottom of the hoof (remove the sole) and getting to the coffin bone that way. Others boil the whole leg with hoof and then once all the tissues are cooked, pull out the bone like one removing a loose tooth!

Hoofs and their coffin bones

Now we got two hollow hoofs with bits of cartilage and gore in it.

Now to clean up the cartilage still stuck inside the hoof. 

Just to avoid unnecessary smellies from developing, I popped the two hoofs in a bowl full of hot, soapy (laundry detergent) water overnight. The next day, rinse it out, hopefully all blood would have soaked out, and you're left with just white gelatinous cartilage inside the hollow.

After soaking in hot, soapy water overnight

Not that much left, but I wanted it to be fully cleaned, so back to work!

Just eyeballing where and how I should scrape the cartilage

This time I used a really really sharp mini chisel that I bought for carving horn/antlers and scrape the cartilage out.

Tool of choice: mini chisel that's been sharpened to razor sharpness

More bits out.

Once you've got most of the cartilagenous bits out, it's OK to let it air dry. All the soaking in hot soapy water, and scraping should minimise smellies.

What it looks like right now, once it's fully dry I'll use a rounded file to scrape away the dried cartilage, and voila! you have a nice clean hollow deer hoof to play with!

 

Other links that might interest you:

Deer hock pouch
Deer hock pouch, iteration 2; with belt loop
How to skin deer legs for hockskins
Bark tanning hair on deer hide
Softening bark tanned hair on deer hide
Salt Curing deer hides for storage
How to degrease deer bones for making tools
Alum tawing white tail hair on neck skin
Soap/Oil tanning hoof-on, hair-on, Mule Deer hockskin
Processing green deer hide into ....