Before I get started on this project, I just want to say that this was my first time skinning a snake and was a learning process. I will link to more professional instructions at the bottom of this post.
Last night my neighbor be-headed a copperhead snake - since I didn't find out till this afternoon I was not able to use the snake meat for eating but still wanted to take the opportunity to utilize the skin. Check out that length (that's me looking all haggard & averting my eyes while holding it by the tail) - not too bad for a male copperhead! Below is the process I followed to
skinning the snake, if you have any experience or advice please feel free to chime in using the comments section.
REMINDER: * If you come in contact with a venomous snake
DO NOT attempt to kill it, nearly all
snake bites in America are due to people trying to kill the snake, the human may miss their mark but the snake never will. This instruction is not for killing snakes, but for using a snake already found dead either by hitting it in the road, having been killed by your pet, or hit by a mower, etc. Have respect for nature and don't kill what you don't need.*
STEP ONE: I laid the snake out on some clean paper, after having washed it off under running water. Snakes may carry salmonella so it's best to create an easy to clean surface before operating.
STEP TWO: This snake had been dead since the night before so it was probably a little more stiff then one freshly deceased. Most skinning instructions tell you to use a sharp knife, but there was no knife in my house sharp enough to cut with (and i tried them all), so I used hair cutting scissors. Scissors seem to be way easier with a cleaner cut.
The head was already chopped off this one, if yours still has a head chop it off. You then start from that chopped part of the neck and cut your way down to the tail following the middle of the belly. (The belly is the bottom soft part of the snake that it slithers on.) You are only cutting the skin, don't push your knife or scissors into the organs, especially if your snake is fresh and you want to eat the meat after. It's easy to see how to do this since the skin is somewhat loose to begin with.
STEP THREE: The copperhead had some fatty membrane stuff sticking to the skin. I took my knife and simply pushed through this membrane on both the right and left sides of the skin. This part was a little harder then I thought it would be, I had to really work it- plus get over touching tons of smelly slime. Once you get this sticky membrane loose on both sides, the skin will be ready to peal.
STEP FOUR: Peeling it is actually as easy as they say, I grabbed both the top right and left sides and just went ahead and pulled back. You may have to pull hard at first to get it going, but then it comes right off "just like a sock" or like "taking off pajamas", and any other weird analogy I heard about it. (See pics above and below.)
STEP FIVE: You are now left with the snake skin. Mine still had goo-y stuff at the very edges which I tried peeling and washing off under running water. I am not sure if this is correct but I could not seem to get it all off. What I read is
the skin should be clean and have nothing on it anymore.
Up top is the outside of the copperhead skin, and below is what the inside of the skin looks like. Amazing how it's not pigmented on the inside- since that would not serve any purpose in nature.
LAST STEP: I pinned it to cardboard with straight pins and placed on top a warm dry surface. It's pinned backwards so you can see what it looks like, but I am told for it to dry best you pin the white side facing up and the pretty side down (the opposite of how it's pictured below)- then rub it with salt to preserve it.
If you want to know if I was grossed out, I can tell you this - holding a dead snake feels very strange, basically just like they feel when they are alive. You can feel every movement of the spine in your hands but it's not as slimy as it seems it would be. The snake had a slightly foul smell, but I think it was from the length of time that passed since it died. What I did to not feel queasy or sicked out while touching it, was not think any thoughts. :)
Read more on skinning snakes
HERE. For skinning snakes to eat, go
HERE.
XoXo
The first snake spotted was a copperhead under some thorny blackberry bushes on a concrete path that leads up to the Silo. It was sitting all coiled up and very alert. I did not feel as though the snake was at ease and I kept a good distance and left it alone. The eyes on this one actually look like they are made of metallic copper colored material - which is probably why Bort was utterly 'creeped out'- (understatement on his reaction to copperheads).
We also stumbled upon a large black snake warming itself in the woods on top my favorite tree. It had some unusual markings on it's side that we didn't know was from a fight/injury or if it was getting ready to shed it's skin... it slithered down the tree trunk and literally did a disappearing act (hole in the ground, hide under the bark, hole in the tree???) It slithered into the oblivion.
When Bort tried to show me another black snake that lives in his well house it wasn't in sight, but the skin it shed was hanging from the rafters and I pulled it down. It was split in two pieces (in the middle of the belly it had broke), but Bort held it together and the snake is about 6 feet LONG!
Not only that but the skin was fresh and new enough to have the head totally in tact! How cool is this??! Even the eyeball skin is on there!
I got to keep this snake skin and brought it home. It smells gross like an old fish, but I can't stop myself from loving it.
Xoxoxo'ssssssss
Both snakes moved so slow you could barely detect actual movement, unless you turned and looked the other way and then looked back again to see the position had changed. They were frozen - so long, the shadows in the dark bamboo would play tricks on ya' eyes, making everything look like it slithered. The copperhead snake was approximately 2 1/2 feet long (maybe a little longer) and pretty well fed judging by it's girthy radius.
The wild thing is... I walked off for a few minutes and came back and the little corn snake had disappeared. Swallowed? Could it have actually gotten away? Does the copperhead even have to make effort to swallow something that small? 
Spooky and beautiful!
xoxo
