after cutting the tail off, getting as much meat and fat from between the quills as possible, rubbing with borax, and drying out the fan. does anyone put anything on the dried out skin area to preserve it, or should the drying out be enough?

thanks
ARO

I just put more Borax on them. It keeps them dry and free from bugs. If anyone knows of something better, I' ll try it. It' s been trial and error for me.

Thats all I do.

You' re doin' it the same way I always have. I have a couple on the wall that are several years old and they are fine.

[Deleted by Admins]

I' ve got 2 fans on the wall that I did 10 years ago and they look as good as the day I preserved them. I' ve always used 20 Mule Team Borax found in the laundry detergent section of the local grocery store. A box will go a long, long way!

I looked for borax in every store here and couldent find it. I called the Taxidermist and he said to stop by and he gave me some stuff. He never told me what it was but im sure it was borax. Ill have to look in the store for some borax this year running low on what the taxadermist gave me.

Here' s a link for info on Borax. I noticed they didn' t mention " Drying of Wild Turkey tails" under uses.

http://www.dialcorp.com/index.cfm?page_id=255

thanks for the info, i will just stick with the game plan then!!

ARO

Once I have the tail fan cleaned and dried I used a hot melt glue gun and sealed the base of the fan and quills with hot glue. A Taxidermist I visited back in Dec was using auto body filler to hold the tail fan spread in the position he wanted( used it kinda like clay, applied it and then shaped and molded it like you would clay and then set it up to dry, it looked like it was working out very well.