Removing the Hide

• 1). Roll the animal onto a plastic tarp to protect the meat from dirt and debris.
  
  
• 2). Make an incision through the skin around the base of the animal's head and all four knees with a skinning knife.
  
  
• 3). Hold the knife in your cutting hand. Work the first two fingers of your opposite hand under the skin at the throat, below the cut around the animal's neck. Point the two fingers toward the animal's chest. Insert the tip of the knife, with the blade pointing outward, between your fingers. Pull up with your fingers while cutting the skin along the center of the animal's throat, down across the breastbone and along the stomach and pelvis to the animal's hind quarters.
  
  
• 4). Slit the hide down along the inside of the front legs to the cut around the front knees. Repeat the process along the inside of the hindquarters.
  
  
• 5). Pull the hide back from the flesh with your hands while using the tip of the knife to separate the hide from the carcass -- when necessary.
  
  

Deboning the Meat

• 1). Remove the lions. Place the tip of the knife against one side of the backbone at the base of the neck. Insert the knife into the animal's back until the knife stops. Keeping the knife blade pressed firmly against the outside of the backbone, cut along the backbone all the way to the end of the spine where the backbone joins the hind quarters.
  
  
• 2). Turn the knife so the blade is perpendicular to the first cut. Insert the knife into the animal where the ribs meet the spine until the knife tip hits the backbone -- along which the first cut was made. Press the blade down firmly against the bone and cut along the length of the back. Pull the loin from the spine. Repeat the procedure on the opposite side of the backbone.
  
  
• 3). Remove the meat from the quarters. Make an incision along the length of the outside of each leg bone from just above the knees to the top of the hip on the hind quarters and the top of the shoulder on the front quarters; cut down into each quarter all the way to the bone.
  
  
• 4). Grasp the quarter in one hand and place your thumb in the cut along the leg bone. Pull the flesh to the side with your thumb. Hold the knife in the opposite hand and meticulously scrape the flesh from the bones with the tip of the knife while continuing to peel the flesh back from the bone with your thumb. Continue peeling and scraping around all edges of the leg, hip and shoulder bones until the meat comes free.
  
  
• 5). Place the boned meat into clean plastic bags.