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Fly Tying
Ebrant10

Hackle Chickens

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Very cool. Those are some beautiful birds indeed. What kind of size range have you seen on their capes? You should some pictures of some of the dries you have tied with the feathers you have plucked. Thanks for sharing.

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They range from size 20 on out to 10s on dry quality hackle. The pictures are my hackle compared to a metz 3 neck hackle. The hackle on the left is a size 16 my grizzly vs a size 16 ginger metz (white the only color i have left in a metz 3). On the right is the same thing in size 14, and above is my grizzly saddle vs a mets badger. The hooks show the starting point of the useable portion of the feather, not too much difference. The flies are each tied with my hackle,(just something i threw together no specific pattern) there are two shots of each the size 14 and the size 16. The flies were tied with the grizzly hackle in the first picture. Thanks for all the interest guys it means a lot to me. The next thing is what to charge? Lol i have no idea what would be the right price to as to charge for a whole skin.

 

 

Evan

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Very interesting and nice birds!

If a bird was killed how hard is it to prepare the skin and what is the process?

I've been wondering this for awhile and just not about chickens.

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birds are quite easy to prepare just after skinning wash using dawn dish soap then use a brass brush on a drill to get all the fat off then borax them for a week or two then your done

 

Ah gotcha. Thanks Paul, that is helpful!

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birds are quite easy to prepare just after skinning wash using dawn dish soap then use a brass brush on a drill to get all the fat off then borax them for a week or two then your done

I have only used a sharp blade before, do you find yourself splattered in bits with this approach? I can always invest in a butchers apron

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I learned from Harry darbee (the original blue dun ) we would cape them in fall every year..

 

In general, you can tell when the birds are ready to be harvested by the appearance of the feathers. Birds should be fully feathered with both inner and outer layers of feathers present. Males will have well-pronounced hackle feathers on their necks. Actual age at harvest will vary by breed, time of year, and feed, but birds generally mature and are fully feathered at about 6 to 8 months of age.

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"our roosters get an exceptionally long life of almost a year waiting for these saddle feathers to get as long as they can"

 

Your right sandflyx this is a quote from Dr Whiting to Peta, it said later around 10 months. So it looks like i will be harvesting all but the breeders this spring around march! So you knew Darbee? That must have been a great person to learn from, how did he cure his capes?

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birds are quite easy to prepare just after skinning wash using dawn dish soap then use a brass brush on a drill to get all the fat off then borax them for a week or two then your done

I have only used a sharp blade before, do you find yourself splattered in bits with this approach? I can always invest in a butchers apron

no I use a slow speed on the drill it just makes it so much quicker to flesh the birds this way WARNING DO NOT TRY THIS METHOD ON MAMMALS

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Evan put me on your list too for full skins. I'd much rather pay a fellow FTF member than a company that I don't know the first person...

Murray

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I admire the courage to take this on. I try to keep my tying area as tidy as possible, but adding a couple live birds would make a mess of things. Good on you for stepping up and I look forward to seeing the skins you come up with. Please keep us posted. I bought a grizzly hen skin from a local guy in central PA and I swear the nuances he is able to get make me second guess the standard offerings. Best of luck.

 

w

I don't know. Somehow I got this vision in my head of a big chicken tied down to the tying bench by his claws and everytime you need a feather you reach over and pluck one from him. He'd be squawking and rocking back and forth and trying his best to peck your finger so you'd have to be fast and try to grab the right feather the first time.laugh.png

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