Hotspotoutdoors

This morning a shot a real real beautiful Drake Mallard with 2 curly tails and man is it just an amazing bird. my question is, what should i do with it right now so i dont ruin the feathers/bird. and where are some good places to get it done in the metro for a reasonable price?
heres a picture of it:

when i had mine done i wraped it in a towel and put it in the freezer. Try to lay all the feathers down and keep it there until you find one. Do a google search for some near you.

You'll probably get a more professional response, but put the head under a wing, wrap some cardboard around the whole bird so as not to ruffle any feathers and put in freezer. Easy as that.

Congrats on a beautiful bird.

place the head under the wing, and freeze it. Some people put them in pantyhoes to keep the feathers in good shape. but my taxidermist said it isn't necessary. I've taken birds to Raddys taxidermy,

Reasonable prices, very pleased with the work.

Don't wrap it in paper or cardboard. It will pull all the moisture out of it. Just wrap it in a plastic bag and tape the bag up tight around the body. Some people tuck the head under the wing and some don't. I have done it and it worked out fine. And try to get it to the taxidermist asap. The sooner the better.

Yeah just make sure the feathers are laid down and just put it in 2 plastic bags. The sooner you can get it to your taxidermist the better.

whats the longest i could wait for it to turn out nice? i know sooner the better, but is a week or two ok?

Are you asking about the turnaround time to get a finished mount back? If so, it could take around a year or more to get it back. Especially this time of the year.

If wrapped well and taken care of, you could leave it in the freezer for quite a while until you get it mounted... but bring it in asap to minimize chances of something happening to it.

I suggest the head tucked under the wing... I've been told of a guy who brought a duck in that was frozen solid and left the head outstretched and he hit it on something and broke it right off. Prob doesn't happen often as people are pretty careful with birds their getting mounted. Something to consider tho.

ok thanks guys!

Nice Plump Drake Mallard.


Did you find the Mojo parts you were looking for?

i havent yet.. my dad went to go look today for some though

Did you try pulling the curl tails apart? We shot one last weekend that had 2 visible curls until i pulled them apart to find it had 4 full curls. Just something to take a look at.

no i didnt touch the curls at all. the reason why im mounting it is because it the first duck ive shot when ive gone out alone, beautiful colors, amazing curley tail, and im not sure where i shot it because theres no blood or anything.

I'm sure it has more than 2 curlys if its a plump drake. Congrats on the bird. I hope to get many of those this weekend

thanks

Jordyn-

I'm sure you've taken care of your bird already but absolutely keep any paper product away from it as mentioned in an earlier post. It will dry the bird out.

My taxidermist used to have Subway sandwich bags in his shop, you can slide the bird right in head first and then double bag it afterwards. If you brought the bird in packaged in a way he didn't want, he'd put it in the Subway bags when you brought it in. I keep a bunch of clean bread bags handy just in case, they fit ducks pretty well.

As far as getting the bird to the taxidermist as fast as possible, that will only help out how quickly he gets it back to you. I've had my birds at my taxidermist for over 1-1/2 years a few times. He usually doesn't take that long but every now and then, he does. Guess what? When its at the taxidermist, it sits in the freezer too! I've honestly got a Bufflehead in MY freezer that I shot last year that I still have to bring in. I'm not worried about it.

Nice Bird BTW!

I cannot provide a reference, but find a taxidermist that specializes in waterfowl.

Be careful on price. While the difference of say $100 is real money, a bad mount becomes worthless in a few years.

In fact later on it can become down right irritating that something that meant so much to you was ruined by the taxidermist.

just to let you know i have kept a duck in the freezer for longer then a year and its still on the wall and looks like it got mounted yesterday. so it really dont matter how long it sits in the freezer.