New to the sport. A few random questions.

[drakeman]

It looks like the tail is cut properly.  You do need to expose the feather quills on the tail feathers as well.  Get all of the fat out.

[cbrice89]

thanks for the tip drakeman! i bought a small steel brush today and im gonna clean it tomorrow. do i need to cut all of that meat out of the tail? I know its going to take a while to flesh it with the hand held method but i really want this to turn out so im going to put forth the effort. im going to post a new thread showing my progress. please continue to give me good pointers, I really do appreciate it!!

[hmw]

Cut all the meat out of the tail.  Remove the uropygeal glands on the top of the tail (the little bean looking things, you will see a little nub on the feather side of the skin and the glands are on the inside of the skin below that).

If you don't get all the fat off the skin, the grease will run to the lowest point of your bird - typically the belly - and you will have a nasty yellow stain and will have to throw the bird out.  Get a flesher.

If you don't properly prep your bird - skinning, fleshing, degreasing, washing, washing, washing, etc.  You will end up with a turd

Buy some videos, spend time with a pro, do anything you can to improve your knowledge.  Read every bird tutorial you can find on this website!!!

Study the carcass of your bird after you skin it so you understand where the joints for the wings and legs attach to the body in different positions.  When you have proper anatomy, the bird just falls into place.  And get tons of reference for when you are ready to mount the bird!

[cbrice89]

drakeman, you said i needed to "open those quills up." what exactly does that mean? do i flesh it until i can see the tips of the quills without any fat around it?