On His Way to the Roost...

[GobbleNut]

Here's the bird I just completed for my hunting buddy. He will be on his way over to his house to roost here shortly. I was growing kind of fond of him rooosting at my house!.... Oh, well, about time to start another one!

[Turkey Talker]

NICE!!!

[Turkey Talker]

Looks like a Vizio....lol

[GobbleNut]

You obviously have a keen eye!!.....

[Turkey Talker]

i want to know how in the heck do you cut the bird to have a seamless stitch when you put em back together. and do you us salt or other items to preserve the skin before mounting? i have old pheasant tails and turkey feathers that i only salted. they are from the 90's. i touched one the other day and it has Gooey crap on it?? im guessing its decomping?

[GobbleNut]

i want to know how in the heck do you cut the bird to have a seamless stitch when you put em back together. and do you us salt or other items to preserve the skin before mounting? i have old pheasant tails and turkey feathers that i only salted. they are from the 90's. i touched one the other day and it has Gooey crap on it?? im guessing its decomping?

All the cutting is done in the areas of the downy feathers under the bird. Keeping the display feathers (all of the ones with the iredescence) intact is a key element for ending up with a really good-looking mount. The cuts are made under the bird and the skin is then just pealed off of the bird from the tail to the head without making any more cuts in the skin. It's a piece of cake after you learn how to do it.
The gooey crap is probably just a bit of fat that got left when you were mounting the tails. You can leave some of that and get away with it for a while, but the cleaner you get the tail bases, the better off you are. Try using borax on the tail bases and skins. You can buy it in the laundry detergent section of supermarkets,...it's cheap,...and is a really good natural preservative. Clean off as much meat and fat as you can get from around the tail, skin, or wings, and then rub the borax into those areas thoroughly. That should do the trick.

[Turkey Talker]

Thanks man!
Have you ever preserved coyote skins? I've always set out in sun?? How can u keep the hide perfect and silky smooth on the inside??

[GobbleNut]

Yeah, I have cased a lot of coyote pelts over the years. Coyotes have relatively thin skins and you can use borax to preserve the hide if you get it good and clean. Their tails are the tricky part. You have to remove the tail bone and meat and that requires a little work and a "tail puller", which is kind of hard to explain here. You also have to be careful to remove all of the meat in the ears and lip area so the hide won't slip later.

If you want the hide of any animal to be supple, you have to tan and treat the hide to break down the cell structure in the hide so that it does not stiffen up. If you don't want to go through the tanning process, then the best thing to do is to treat the hide with borax and/or salt and while it is still wet and pliable, stretch it out in the shape you want it to dry in and tack it down on a piece of plywood or something similar. It will dry stiff, but at least it will be in a shape that might be suitable for displaying the hide.

Casing is a term used to describe a method of skinning that results in the skin remaining almost completely intact. If you are wanting to case the hide to sell later, then you need to get (or make) some hide stretchers that will let the cased hide dry properly and have a minimal amount of shrinkage.