A couple of years ago I was given a pheasant skin that was well scraped and dry, but did not shine. I washed it in mild soap and man, was the water dirty! Hanging it up to dry stretched the skin. It turns out that there are few feathers and extra stretch between each distinct part of the bird (neck, back, flank, shoulders, etc.) so cutting it up along those spaces resulted in different zip-locks for each kind of feather (still on the skin). I found this very handy.