Hi all. I just shot in April my second Missouri turkey since my first 10 years ago. I caped the turkey out, fleshed it, pinned it and put the borax on. Everything seemed great. Flash forward 4 weeks and I went to take a look and the neck portion looks like the left side and right side feathers splayed out completely for the bottom 5-6 inches. It didn't look like this when I first did it. The rest still (https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200526/3353df1b69a5d2ffca68bb16cc5fb357.jpg)(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20200526/2a5e9cb93e3a9952996b83b586b8f202.jpg)looks good to me. I tried to reposition the feathers in the middle but they just split back out to the sides. Any thoughts on what happened and if there is a fix? Should I just cut off the bottom 6 inches or will the feathers look funny? Any help for this newbie would be greatly appreciated.
Ryan
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Where did you have it drying at?
Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk
I certainly don't know for sure but I have seen bird mounts that looked like they were ruined. (Ducks cleaned by a spouse). That were made to look good again by getting them damp and drying with a blow drier. You could run into problems with any bird taxidermy if there's grease in it. I do know a taxidermist would always de grease a turkey before mounting-soak it in gas or some other solvent so most folks that do a cape type mount omit that process-probably takes some luck to get rid of the fat without actually degreasing it.
You should be able to clean the feathers. Get a washcloth, some dawn dish soap and some warm water and gently wash the area in question. Grab a blow dryer and dry the feathers and see if that will take care of the problem. Don't over wet them just give them a good rub and dry.
Awesome. Thanks for the advice. I will clean this a bit and borrow my wife's blow dryer. I'll update everyone once I have given it a go.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk