junkmonkey17

I just recently killed a turkey he weighed 21.5 pounds 10 1/8 inch beard with a little more than 1 inch spurs. I didnt want to mount the whole thing but i wanted to mount the fan,beard, and feet what is the best way to do that if i have cut them off. i put borax on the meat for right now but i dont know if that is the best thing.

MnOutdoors

Congrats on the nice Tom. Tack the fan out on a piece of plywood. Use small nails or tacks. Don't over spread it. Put borax on the meat on the beard also. Let the fan dry for a couple months, reapply borax after a few days to ensure it gets very dry. As far as mounts - there are several to pick from.

junkmonkey17

Thanks man that is exactly what i did i was just making sure because i didn't want to mess anything up.

superstrutter

You need to cut as much meat and bone off as possible. If you don't, I don't care how much borax you use, it will smell and take forever to dry. You don't have to borax the beard. Just trim enough of the meat off of it and it will dry quickly. Your fan should not take a month or longer to dry. If it does, then you didn't properly clean it. I have mounted 30 or so fans and every one of them took about two weeks to dry. I have three fans drying now and two in the freezer that I will mount later. If you want me to take pictures of the process when I mount the other two, I will be glad to do it. I can also show some pics of mounts I have done if you like.

junkmonkey17

i was thinking about getting this one give me yalls opinion though.
http://www.basspro.com/Hunters-Speci...10210735/48846

2eagles

Yup!

superstrutter

These are pics of some of the mounts I have done. Those are three of my birds I have killed this season drying. After you have taken as much meat and bone off as possible, just cover with borax and pin the two primary feathers to cardboard with pins.

junkmonkey17

i didnt cut the small thick feathers of the front do u think i need to though

superstrutter

I personally think it makes the mount look better, but you don't have to if you don't want to. If you do, put a little borax on the fat part.

jmedenf

I keep at least one row of feathers in front of the main tail feathers. You can also find instructions (on this forum, it think) to cut the whole back feathers with the tail fan as well.

Make sure you completely remove the tail bone.

Instead of pinning or tacking the tail feathers, I have read that you can duck tape right over the tail feathers and the tape does not stick to the feathers due to oils in them, but will hold them in place. I usually pose the feathers and sandwich them between two pieces of cardboard, and then weigh them down with something to hold them in place. I have also been told that borax works well to dry them out, but I usually don't have any around when I need it so I just use table salt. While it is drying, I also let the maggots eat any meat away that I missed (outside of course). Sounds gross, but they can clean it better than I can.

I also mount them the way 2eagles has in his center mount in his post. Cut spurs off and thread them with leather, threaded through your shotgun shell brass through the hole after you remove the firing cap. Then glue the beard inside the shotgun shell and hang.

You can also dry the feet whole. I would recommend posing the feet open and dry them like that or they will just curl up. Then cap the ends of the feet where they are cut off with shotgun shell brass.