1. To divide a bird into legs and breast, start with the legs. With the bird on its back, hold the end of one leg out from the body. Cut through the skin between leg and carcass, keeping the knife vertical and as close to the carcass as you can. Most of the meat here is on the thigh, so cutting close to the carcass will cut down on loss of leg meat.

2. Once you've cut through the skin, stretch the leg out to the side, and feel your way down to the hip joint where the ball-end of the femur (upper leg bone) fits into the socket opening of the hip.Cut through the connective tissue and cut the leg free.

3. With the leg separated from the carcass, you can now cleanly cut the breast free of the sternum and rib cage. Lay the bird on its back, and feel for the top of the sternum, running down the center of the breast. Starting mid stermum, run your knife down one side of the sternum, separating the meat from the bone.

4. You should be able to see the bony-white of the sternum now. With your knife, scrape the breast meat from mid-sternum down to the belly opening. Lift the flap at the end of the breast.

5. Now scrape the breast meat from the sides of the rib cage, working forward to the neck opening. For ducks and geese, whose wishbones are much thicker than upland birds, go ahead and free the meat from the rib cage. For upland birds,  stop when you reach the wishbone. There's a simple trick to get a few more bites of delicious white meat off the each breast.

6. Clip through the top of the wishbone.Then scrape the rest of the breast meat free of the rib cage and sternum, until the only place it is still  connected is at the bottom of the wishbone. Here, the upper wing bone (or humerus) joins with the scapula (or shoulder blade) and clavicle ( also known as the collar bone in humans but when fused together in bird skeletons, called the wishbone) to form the shoulder joint.

7.  In this front view, you can see how the clavicle and wing come together at the shoulder. Slice through the tendons and ligaments at the shoulder joint and free the breast. Repeat Steps 1-6 for the other side.

8. To divide the thigh from the drumstick:hyperestend the knee joint ( bend it the opposite way it's meant to bend ) to loosen and stretch the ligaments. Then slice those ligaments between the thigh bone (femur) and lower leg bones (fibula and tibia).