I'm a milliner that uses feathers on my hats. I found two whole Pheasant Wings at a local antique shop and thought they would work great on some 19th century style hats I will be making; the problem is that they seem to attract small bugs. I tryed putting them in kosher salt for a few weeks and they went away but I've just pulled them out and they have bugs again. Is there anyway to prevent these wings from getting bugs. I don't want to put them on a hat and then have bugs crawling down on my head. Any suggestions or should I take it to a professional taxidermist and see if they can do a cleaning?
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Get rid of them. You can buy a whole new pheasant for $10 and have a taxidermist prepare the wings without meat inside them. Then you will have no bugs. Don't be cheap. Do this the right way and bugs won't bug you!
You can go to walmart and get some 20 mule team borax and cover them in it and that should keep them away. Shake it out of course before you put it in your hat! If you want to get into it cut the underside of the wings along the bone (2-3 cuts) depending on how much of the wing you have and pull all the meat out and sprinkle borax in the cuts. That should bug proof them. How old are they? Any idea?
Thanks for the suggestions. How much should I expect to pay to have a taxidermist take the meat out of the wings for me?
Call a few taxidermists and ask them what they would charge. If it's more then $10 tell them to 'stuff it' because the job is CAKE easy! We'e talking 10 minutes of work at most.