Hoping for some help with waterfowl taxidermy. I've done some small mammal taxidermy, several pelts, and leather making, which have all turned out pretty good. But now that I've been doing a lot of duck hunting, I've been wanting to learn how to preserve them. Just like everything else, there seems to be many ways to go about it. For this buffle, I skinned/shaved it thoroughly, washed it over and over with dawn dish soap, towel dried it, coated the inside with borax, mounted, then dried with a hairdryer while combing with a toothbrush. But yikes! The feathers look terrible! They're all curled up and disheveled. Does it need a better washing? Perhaps degreasing with fuel? It feels weird not following my usual method with McKenzie products (salt, wash, skin/shave, degrease, pickle, shave, pickle, neutralize, tan) but everything online says you really just need borax with birds. I'd like to know how to get the feathers to lay more smoothly. I appreciate any input. I'm heading out to Ridgefield on Tue and hope to have some more birds to practice on.
