nctaxi

Yes they strut on the limb. ANd a strutting mount is not that difficult. First thing is to have a body small enough for the feathers to fluff, too large a body will not allow it. The way I do it is to mount and hang it tilted on the wall, so the feathers fluff by themselves, preen on the wall and let dry. Actually easy, IMO. Now a shingled bird is more difficult but can be accomplished about the same way. Dude, you need to go back to your taxidermist and figure out why this bird looks so bad and see what he will do about it. He may not know that you are unhappy and would appreciate the opp to make it right.

monsterbucks2011

last year in youth season i saw one strutting in the tree and then flew down and keep strutting.

Hobbes

I've seen worse posted on this very site, but it still is a poor example of a strutting bird.

The way size would have affected the ability to mount the bird strutting would be the use of an oversized form. An oversized form will cause the skin to tighten and lays the feathers down preventing the ability to "taxi" the skin and stand the feathers up or even move them for that matter. In other words, it is likely your taxidermist used too big of a form instead of your bird being "too small".

Changing the size of a form is not that difficult, but does take some extra effort on the taxidermist's part. More than likely a properly sized form could have been purchased, but if not adjustments are easy enough to make.

I'll add one more thing. I believe most guys that mount a lot of turkeys are using silicone or latex caulk pretty extensively. That doesn't mean it can't be done without, but I think most turkey taxidermists in this day and age have seen the benifits of caulk in positioning and holding feather patterns in place. I wouldn't mount a turkey any other way.

Oh yeah, turkeys have no problem strutting on the limb. It is completely natural and done very often in the spring.