Just my opnion here, but to be honest I don't know why anyone tries to preserve and mount the tails with the feathers still intact to the dried meat? I've posted many times on other boards and described how taxidermists do it from an article I cut out many years ago, to me there's no better or satisfying way to do it.

All it amounts to is removing each individual feahter from the meaty tail area one at a time by cutting them away and removing the meat with tissue. As you remove them lay them out as they were in the tail fan. It's not that hard and the results are excellent, and you don't have to worry about any drying meat or bugs, ever! You only need to save about 3 or 4 layers of the secondary tail feathers also, do the same with them one at a time. Start with the primary tail feathers and lay them on a table and weight them down so they don't blown away. Then do the secondary feathers and lay them to the side also, in a separate place. Once your done with that put wax paper behind the primary feathers and put 2-3 layers of quick setting fiberglass (boat repair fiberglass works fine), then you can use a glue gun to attach the secondary feathers to the primary's once they dry (within hours). You can then order a plaque or make your own, it's as professional as it gets, and relatively easy.

Your's might be too dry to try and remove the feathers from the meat, but give this a try in the future, I guarantee you will be pleased with the results, I do this for all of my birds and have done it for friends, they love the results.