Without knowing what  you are looking for antibody wise I will give you some
info I have with a disclaimer to check and make sure your epitope holds up
with the fixation.
I did years and years of chicken skin at the University of South Carolina
with Dr. Roger Sawyer.(he is definitely an avian skin expert). We used a
95%ETOH 5%Acetic Acid as a fixative (Carnoy's without chloroform). We took
scutate, scutellate, spur, foot pad and interstitial scales, dermis and
epidermis with a very small amount of fat. fixed in scintillation vials
(5-10mls for a 1.5cm piece) for 1 hour. then changes of 100% ETOH 3x15
minutes, xylene 3x 15 minutes (or until tissue appears "cleared"). 1:1
mixture of xylene:paraffin 56C 2 x 30 minutes and then paraffin overnight in
vacuum oven 58C. We were looking at keratins and fibronectin, this was the
procedure we worked out that was best under our conditions. One of the
references I would suggest would be "Epithelial-Mesenchymal Interaction in
Development" ISBN 0-03-060326-9 It is pretty old (1983) but it has some good
references of some people that are pros (i.e. Drs. Philippe Sengel, Danielle
Dhouailly, Paul Goetinck, John Fallon and my mentor Roger Sawyer) You can
also request more recent articles from
the labs of any of these people. Keep in touch with me personally if you
need some guidance. anita