Hen Party

Back in school, my instructor gifted me a hen of his that had dropped dead one morning after dutifully laying eggs for however long hens typically live.  He mentioned the death that morning in class and of course I asked him what he was doing with the body.  He laughed and said his wife was too attached to do anything aside from bury it.  Wouldn't you know though; after lunch he came back to the work-shop with a bulky, ten pound plastic bag and said "don't say I never did anything for ya."



He suggested mounting it in a little nest and selling it to a stall at the farmers market for a display and I was all YAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN.



This baby's gonna be laying some fabrigee eggs if I have anything to say about it.  Which I do, because I'm the one mounting it.  I intend to make her  into the piece I'm submitting for a group show at a local gallery for an upcoming show called "Other Nature."  I'm going to attempt to capture the moment the egg actually exits the body so I've been watching reference videos online and getting my facts straight.  Have you ever watched a chicken lay an egg?  It's pretty gnarly.



It took her two days to thaw out; and I commenced skinning yesterday.  It was going great until I was down near the legs, working on getting the tail disconnected and I felt a stream of cold liquid gush down my arm.  At once my nose told me it was piss.  Chicken piss.  I must've punctured the bladder somewhere or something but the stench had me gagging.  I can pretty much stomach  any odor but urine remains my Achilles heel as far as my iron stomach goes.  I've lived in a city for almost half of my life and I still gag and shudder every time I walk by a patch of wino-piss on a sidewalk or alley.



I wiped off my arm, burnt some sage and kept on truckin'.



I'm no fan of cleaning skulls; it's dirty and laborious.  I do find it very fascinating though.  Here is a chicken tongue:







I drew a sight line from the newspaper image's face indicating where the portion which would be exposed from the beak-view is.  The rest is all in the back of the mouth/throat.  I guess that's  how our tongues lay?  The hole in the back interests me; I wonder what purpose it serves.  If I ever want to compete, I'll need to learn how to pickle tongues.  Prefab plastic parts are a big no-no.



Here she is, skinned.  Her feathers are so beautiful and soft; I very much look forward to taxi-ing the skin on a form.







I'm debating on leaving her ID band on her ankle, in honor of where she came from.



Another view of feathers: