I have Wood duck and teal skins which are very greasy. I doubt if I can save the full skins, so I intend to pluck the useful feathers from them. Then maybe wash them in warm water to clean them.
Apart from the obvious wings and flank feathers on these birds, which other feathers are worth plucking??
I use both the breast and belly feathers from teal & wood ducks for flat wings and to make Hornberg style flies. Here is a sample. Here is a link to wwhat I mean by a “flat wing”: http://www.danica.com/flytier/berickson/nancys_prayer.htm
Tim
id say if the skins are greasy just put some borax on 'em and just let them dry out for a week.
Before you start using borax, you might want to scrape the inside of the skins to remove as much grease as you can and then tack or pin the skins securely against corregated cardboard to draw more oil and moisture out of them. The cardboard should be reasonably clean, grease-free, and dry. If the feathers are very oily, wiping them with newsprint might help. If your local papers are bad about depositing ink, then use paper hand towels of the sort found in public restrooms (at least in the U.S. - I can’t speak for public conveniences in antipodian parts of the globe).
Good luck,
Ed
I shoot a heck of a lot of ducks each year and keep their feathers for my personal use and to give to other tyers. I am firmly convinced that unless there is a compelling reason to do so it is much much easier to pluck the feathers from the bird and just forget about going throught the hassle of trying to get the oil out of the skin.
Been there - tried that - ain’t worth the effort.
Tim
The skins are so greasy. I tried to wash them in mild detergeant and warm water but they fell apart anyway. So now they are plucked and dried and the feathers stored. Its really tempting to keep every single feather, but some of them I cannot think of a reason where they could be used, so I think I will be brave and bin those.
After reading your post that said the skin fell apart from the washing and your comment about the oil on the feathers I would conclude that the skins were spoiled (like rotten). If so, I think you did the only thing possible to salvage the feathers and that was to pluck them. I would like to warn you that you must assure that the feathers are completely dry before you place them in storage. I take my duck feathers and place them on a concrete slab and let the sun really work them over, then place them in a plastic bag. So far I have not had any problems. If you go this route watch for signs of moisture in the bag and if found redry.
In addition to the breast & belly feathers the covert feathers on the wing can be used to make fan wing flies and most of the back feathers & neck feathers can be used for soft hackles.
If you have limited access to duck fethers I would recommend you save all the feathers you can off of the birds and then let your imagination run wild. Thats what I do and I really enjoy creating flies using the duck & goose feathers I harvest.
Good Luck.
Tim
I agree with the plucking. However I go one step further, I sort the feathers by size, color and shape and make them into bundles.
Depending on the size I either stack a few dozen together and wrap the stems with fine wire, or I fold a piece of stiff paper over the stems and bind them with some staples.
When it come to tying time you won’t have to sort through a whole bag of loose stuff to find a couple of matching feathers, saves a lot of time and mess.
If the skin isn’t fresh (has signs of decomp…smells bad) then pluck the feathers out, but if it was frozen soon after it was removed from a fresh bird, then I pin them to a board skin up and scrap ALL of the fat and meat bits off. THEN I wash them in warm water and Woolite, then pin the skin out reasonably tight, feather side up and dry the feathers thoroughly. Unpin the skin and lay it on a bed of borax, until completely dry or dry the skin side as much as possible with the drier and then hang it to dry more for several days. The skin will be crispy. If you small anything bad, or see flies etc… you didn’t do it right. 
I have 3 bags of different colours I bought.
They cost about $3.50 or less