Turkey 101 tail preservation-how?

[laker1]

Do you use borox or what?

[Scott M]

In a nutshell: Mix salt and borax, after you've removed the fan intact, you can rub the salt/borax mix into the remaining flesh (assuming you've removed as much flesh and fat as possible). Spread the feathers, position them with pins, then let it dry. You can add the spurs and beard too. I like to keep my shotshell casing and put the beard in the shell.

Here's a good video:

[leech~~]

I just did my tail today just about like the video with Borax.

Now looking for some ideas for Spurs and Beards I started another post for.

[Buck12]

I just watched video and I have two fans I started-wife and grandson each scored nice toms. I didn't remove as much of the meat on the tail as suggested in video. Can I still remove the meat at this time? Thanks

[Cheetah]

Can I still remove the meat at this time?

Yep, you can. If it is super dried and hard it may be difficult though.

[nbadger23]

I've used borax on the 4 that I've done myself and it's worked quite well. Now, if I could just get better at removing the tail itself I'd be happy. I feel like I'm butchering the darn thing as I haven't quite learned a good technique. They've turned out ok but I've got a lot of work to do.

[Shoot2Kill]

I would be very cautious doing a fan like what is shown in the video unless you don't mind the tail rotting and stinking a few years down the road - even with the borax.

A turkey fan has 3 sections. The long tail feathers, the mid length ones, and the smaller ones that come off the turkeys back. If you cut the fan off the body correctly you will end up with these 3 sections - they are very easy to tell the difference in when you are looking at them...simply cut each section apart and set them out individually.

-EACH section needs to be cut apart so you can remove ALL of the meat/fat/etc and then borax is applied.

-Remove the small misc feathers on the backside of the main fan and discard them - you'll never see them once the fan is dry and this allows you to clean the butt of the main fan much easier.

-Pin each section individually and re-apply borax and work it in every few days for about 2 weeks. A fan actually dries faster doing it like this because you've removed nearly every piece of flesh. You would be surprised how much flesh is left inside the butt of a fan that the borax can't reach if you are drying it as one piece.

-Once they are dry, unpin them, and glue them back together with hot glue or a 2 part 5 min apoxy. I like apoxy because there is no chance that it will EVER come apart.

Doing it this way also gets you a much nicer final product because the feathers lay much flatter/nicer on each other - the difference in the 2 methods (drying the fan as a whole vs drying each section) is very noticeable.

[nbadger23]

Thanks for the information Shoot. I've always done it as one piece and although I've not had any rotting so far they definitely don't lay as nice as the one I had a taxidermist do. I know they are professionals and I likely won't get it as nice as they do because I don't have the tools or experience but I figure if I keep on trying and learning I'll get better at it and it's nice to know you did it yourself.

[Shoot2Kill]

I did it as a whole tail for a long time too but then I saw an online tutorial on separating the sections and gave it a shot and have always been glad I did.

You don't need any special tools or a lot of experience. Next time shoot one look at the tail after you cut it off, it's very easy to tell the difference in the 3 sections and you just run the knife down between them and cut them apart. Nothing to it. Some 2 part apoxy you can get at walmart or hot glue is all you need to put it back together. It really does not take that much skill....next time you shoot a pheasant take apart the tail (2 sections there) and give it a shot, it's the same on a turkey only bigger. You'll be much happier with the results for years to come and you don't have to worry about any rot.

I'm going to take pics of the process this year and will post it up after I'm done.