Standing Bird Mounts....Can't get the bird to stand

[boure351]

Hello All,

I recently mounted a standing bird, and due to the fact that I could not make him stand upright, he is now squatting. I am using 12 gauge wire to run through the feet and into the manikin body. The weight of the bird's upper body proves to be too heavy to allow the bird to stand upright.  I have thought about possibly running a single wire up through one leg, traveling the length of the manikin down through the other leg to hopefully yield more stability. 

Any of you have any pointers as to how I can fix this problem?

I have seen many mounts with one leg raised and all the weight on one leg...How is this done?



Thank you all very much

[Paul C]

Oh boy!    Are you running the wires all the way out the feet and then securing them to the base?  If not....you REALLY need to read some books or get some BASIC taxidermy videos. 

[boure351]

Yeah I am running out of the feet into the base and securing the wires.  The wires are secured inside of the manikin as well

[Cole]

Not sure how to tell you what ga. wire to use if we have no idea what kind of bird it is. 12ga. is plenty big for many birds, and way too small for others. The kind of wire makes a difference too.

[boure351]

I am mounting wood duck drakes right now. I am not sure the brand of the wire of which I am using.  The manikins are homemade and are made of that grass type material, which is just the way I learned.

[3bears]

Cole beat me to it but I will post anyway. What size bird? If it was a goose or a turkey than 12 gauge isn't enough wire .I pretty much use 12 for most every bird. I think you may have some soft wire or something in your process is wrong. There has got to be a tutorial on wiring bird legs look for it and see if you are doing everything the same. 3bears

[Trophy Wildlife]

This happened to me once when I was green-er lol. Anyways I used some ready rod under the bird to keep it up and did the base like a late fall corn field. I hid the ready rod in a corn stock and all was good. It has been in my showroom for a couple of years and  one has mentioned it, so that is a pass in my book. I wouldn't plan on doing it but works for a fix. Imo

Sent from my GT-I9000M

[Nancy C]

12ga wire should be more than enough support for a wood duck, especially if it is standing on both legs.
All I can think is that maybe you don't have the wire anchored securely into the form, (or maybe that the form isn't wrapped tightly enough) and it is managing to move or twist around.
Another possibility is that you might be using the wrong kind of wire.

It should be annealed steel wire. It shhould also be galvanized to resist rust.  (I'm not sure if that part is 100% essential, but it's a good idea.)

[hmw]

It sounds like an issue with anchoring the wire to the body.  Make sure you double the wire back into the body and cinch it down to get a solid hold - it shouldn't wiggle and the only way it should move is if you bend the wire.
If the bird feels loose to you when you put it on the base, open it back up and re-wire the leg.  Yes it sucks to have to cut all the stitches from the belly and re-wire and re-sew, but if you don't do it right, you will have a crappy bobble mount.

[boure351]

Thank you all for the great words of wisdom. I will Definately try

[JL]

All the above answers are good but no one asked if you tied the wires to the leg bones and then rebuilt the leg muscles or did you remove the bones and only used the wire to rebuild to? For a wood duck and using the leg bones and wire should hold up the bird.

[boure351]

I use the leg bones and tie wire to them, I think the problem is the connection to the manikin and probably no a tight enough tie to the leg bones