I recently obtained a snow owl and the proper permits from the dnr to do a mount for a local high school display. I do lots of feathered animals but have yet to do an owl. Can anyone give me pointers of how to skin out and mount. Does anyone know of a form to fit one also or will i have to make my own. help please
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You can buy foam at Mednards, or homedepo. It expans, and just spray it in a can the same size as your bird and there ya go! I am 12, but have mounted many birds, from black birds to ducks, to geese and it always works.
DO NOT DO THAT! Wrap a body! Skin the bird out as normal. Save the body and wrap a body with wood wool to the same size as the original body. I have two tips for owls! The first is to use the thigh bode or femer. An owls legs quite often extend pass the body where you would normally attach the nee at. I strip the wings down on most of my birds, but use what ever technique you are used to. The skin will roll over the head easily so you don't need to worry about a neck incision. Leave the eye orbits in the skull and cut the iris off of the top of the orbit. Then clean out the eye juice with paper towls. This way your eye is alreadt preset. All you need to do is fill the orbit with clay. I use an eye that is 2mm smaller than what is recomended for owls with this method as that is usually the size of the iris.
If you are like me and can't wrap a bird body worth a darn then here is another idea that I do somethimes. Buy a pheasent body( it should be bigger then what you will need) and carve it down to the size and shape of the owls body. I have done this many of times and it works great! I put the same size neck back into the mount as I take out of the bird! You will find out that All an owl is is feathers.
Wash the bird with dawn, degrease, and gas(yeah yeah I know CUR! LOL) then blow dry with a blower. I would not recomend tumbling it as the feathers are very soft and fluffy and will hold onto any tumbling material you use!
Make sure you get some good reference photo's before you start. Most of the work in an owl is grooming and back combing on the head!
If you have any other questions feel free to e-mail me at the above address!
Hope this helps!
Later
Grouseman
I don't wash any bird other than waterfowl that's not bloody or muddy. Raptors are notoriously "boney" with very little if any fat tow worry about. The body size is almost exactly that of the Great Horned Owl and can be substituted easily. Research Mannikins has a good selection of raptor forms, but the Snowy is not listed (Use the Great Horned) or you can go to Van Dykes and buy a foam body for the snowy owl. They also carry the glass eyes. They suggest the 18 mm straw eye, but for effect, I'd suggest the yellow eye. (BTW, I clean ALL the stuffing out of the skull and use clay to rebuild those eyes). If you order the eyes from Van Dykes, order the pin-point pupils as the snowy's eyes react in that way during daylight hours on snowy tundra. On all my white birds, I skin them by cutting from the knee of one leg across the anal vent to the other knee. It takes a bit longer to skin out like this, but it keeps those fluffy breast feathers intact and the seam is completely hidden. The skull will have to be removed by using a dorsal incision as it is MUCH bigger than the esophagus and tracheal opening. And stay AWAY from gas on white birds especially because gas leaves a residue PERIOD. If you doubt it, put a drop on some copier paper and let it dry. Then hold it up to the light and look at the halo. For the seconds saved by using gas or any other flammable liquids, the danger makes it a very poor investment.
But I do not agree with everything that is said. But I do know that we all have our own methods of doing things. (And most of belive that it is the onlt way to do thinks......LOL) I have done several owls and they roll over the head easily! As For the eyes I like the 112 tohochons in yellow 16mm. The eye socket is Cartelage and will NOT harm anything!
As for the washing, Yes they have very little fat to worry about but the gas will draw out the oils that are in the fat leaving no chance for oil sepage(spelling?) in the future.
Feathers are not paper! you will get rings from water just as easily or paper. I do however suggest that you use waxed paper to set your bird on cause the ink from news paper will bleed into a white critter!
The Correct placement of the leg needs the WHOLE leg bone! The knee is where you usually cut the leg off of the other birds and reattach to the mannikin with an artificial thigh sculpted into it. Some posses you may be able to get away with just using the knee but NOTT all!
Pittenger if you do not have any reference for raptors then a good book to get would be "Birds of the world---Birds of Prey By John P.S. Mackenzie" the ISBN is 1-55971-019-5. There are some very good photos in this book of you snowy owl.
Sorry George but I did not mean to get into a pissing match with you but If I REALLY do not agree with something I will say so....LOL
Later guys;
Grouseman
None taken. We'll just agree to disagree. I DO agree with you about the legs. I didn't mean to remove the thigh bone, just open the hide FROM knee to knee. I always leave that thigh bone in. Just one of those habits I DIDN'T give up when I stopped using gas at $6 a gallon when that much would buy 20 gallons of diluted soap. LOL
Mr. Pittenger,
First off I would suggest that you read the 83 posts in the archives on owls, which you may or may not have done. Perhaps only 5 posts will be of any use, but it is best to use all available information.
I am with George on not washing the owl unless it is filthy, and also that IF you wash your owl, DO NOT use gasoline as it is of absolutely no value in removing any oil or fat from a bird skin in the short term. I know that Grousemans intentions are heartfelt but he is miss-informed by whoever told him it "will draw out the oils that are in the fat leaving no chance for oil sepage(spelling?) in the future." I have spent considerable time investigating the efficiency of removing dirt and blood from feathers, and gasoline does absolutely nothing to remove the fat from feathers, and won't do it in skin. Read my two articles in the 1990 Taxidermy Today Magazine on washing birds, or if you still doubt it, try this experiment. Place some fat on a white or black feather. Let it set on it for ten to twenty minutes, about the time to skin an Owl. Take this feather which if you hold up to light will have an oil soaked in - Then drop the feather into clean brand new gasoline and leave for 10 minutes, remove, fluff dry, and look up to light again. Notice, the fat is still there! Repeat the experiment, using this same 'fatted' feather, and soak and gently agitate a couple times in Dawn or Ivory Dishwashing liquid, rince in water, dry, and look up to the light again. Hopefully this will be the last time you use Gasoline. It does nothing to degrease, risks your health, leaves you with waste material which is considered environmentally unfriendly, harms the elasticity of the skin, etc. Unless you use some other more deadly solvent like ether or acetone, you will not degrease the fat out of feathers in the short term. Period.
Concerning skinning the head of an owl by pulling the neck skin over. I have skinned well over 200 owls of probably 15 species (most for study skins) and roughly 90% of the GHO and Snowy's skin over, but if the owl was in the freezer for some time and is only slighly freeze dried, the elasticity of the skin is lost and in some cases the cut suggested by George is needed. Screech owls also usually skin over, but Saw Whet Owls almost always need the cut.
As far as bodies, I hand carve everyone I use, and usually if my pose is chosen ahead of scheule, I carve the large thighs into the form. But, George is correct that GHO and snowy's are similar in size and will only require sizing to add or detract from a purchased body - which takes about as long to do and to carve your own, neglecting the extra cost of ordering, shipping, unpacking, waiting for three to ten days, and paying for the purchased body. I prefer Balsa wood or very dense foam because the added weight of the massive leg bones, wings, and head, requirs a sound body to anchor the wires. Wrapped bodies generally are not as solid, and since owl feathers are not as structurally sound, if you attempt to manipulated the skin from outside, much damage can be done to the feathers. The down must be kept fluffy for a good looking mount.
I'm with grouseman on leaving the sclerotic ring, but the ring is not cartilage, it is BONE held together by cartilage. But, don't fill them with clay - it gets too heavy. You can carve foam to fill the voids and attach the eye - one that fits the ring perfectly - with hot glue. The iris of snowy owls is as wide ranging as the great horned, it is just that most photographs are taken in daylight with full sun. Since hunting is often done at night, the pupils will dialate fully then, so if your habitat is set at night or day, adjust the pupil size accordingly. Unfortunately commercial eye outfits don't offer much variety, so shop around for various eyes with differing iris sizes so that you have the desired look.
Just one quick question! If the milk yellow residue in the bottow of my colman feul bucket is not oil then what is it? I known that it is not the water from the skin!
Just asking cause I am corious(spelling?) now.
It's the FAT RESIDUE OFF THE FLESH SIDE. The fat in the feathers does NOT dissolve as gas users believe. The gas simply DILUTES the grease that sets free on the flesh side. But guess what, soap does a better job as the alkali in it actually DOES attack the fat. Gasoline is a SOLVENT. Mechanics have known this for decades and now even the taxidermist who use gas are claiming that it is for displacing water only. You gas guys are getting closer ever day and if you're fortunate enough not to go out in a blaze of glory, one day soon you'll accept simple chemistry as facts and not fiction.
If the gas is dissolving the fat, as you insist, then all the fat would be dissolved, i.e. held within, mixed and suspended. The gunk on the bottom, is loose water and already loose grease that runs off the surface. If indeed, the gas actually did something, all you would see is clear water in the bottom. There are other experiments you can try. Take your wonderful gasoline fluid and add some vegetable oil, shake it up, and see if it dissolves - no? - why not?
I used gasoline once in 1981 to attempt to degrease three mallards, and I once used mineral spirits to displace fluid in 1985 after hearing a great taxidermist at Milwaukee Public Museum used it. Both instances were entirely disagreeable, the smell lingered in the skin, the skin had lost quite a bit of elasticity, and the gasoline fumes actually dissolved out some white styrofoam I used for pinning.
George has been fighting the good fight to try and instruct the beginning and seasoned taxidermist in methods that are not deleterious to ones health and has gotten more grief than he deserved. He, Cur, and dozens of other taxidermists don't use gasoline to chase fluids and surface grease. Unfortunately, many other taxidermists who should know better, still use it. Old ways die hard, even when a superior system is available.
After being TAUGHT at the school I attended by a phenomenal bird guy, to use white gas for the "final degreasing" of my bird, then getting reprimanded by George as though he were my father, to NOT use white gas as it did NOT do any type of degreasing but boded ill to my health, and that of my families, since my shop is connected to my home...after arguing with him that it DID appear to cause my plummages to look prettier...I really decided to listen to him and put GEORGE to the test! Oh if only I could prove George wrong it'd bring me the day I'd been waiting for, LOL. It happened on a scarce very cold day here in Minnesota when I did not want to step outside to use the Coleman fuel.
So what did I do. I actually washed my bird more thoroughly than I have ever deemed needed (because the white gas was always there to take care of that last step....NOT)and I rinsed that bird in warm water till it was nice and clear, then a couple of final rinses in cold water. I spun that baby out in the washer, dumped it into a bag of sawdust and did a little dance around the shop with my new musical instrument. A BIG maraca. I blew dry that greasy assed duck and it turned out as clean and degreased as a duck can get.
And yes George, the tumbler is on my priority list! I'm hoping in maybe a month I'll be ordering it.
where do the snowy owls come from?