I mounted a brant goose over the weekend and noticed afterwards alot of downy looking feathers coming through down on the birds back near the center of the bird.The bird had no pin feathers and ive been shingeling every day.Any advice on this situation?
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Sounds like your feather tracking could have been lined up better before you ever mounted the bird. Doing this before mounting results in a much better looking and faster mount. Next time you work on a bird, while you are blowdrying the feathers, take an air hose with about 25-30 psi and blow around inside the skin. This will help keep the feathers "in track". Also, lay your bird on something besides just the table. A piece of cardboard, matting, anything flat so that you can spin that piece not the actual bird while mounting. Hope that helps.
On Atlantic flyway brant, the black feathers on the younger birds exhibit shorter black coloration, meaning the black feathers are only black the outer 3/8 inch or so of each feather. Older brant don't have this problem. We downsize and tighten up the black feather tracts when mounting or exchange younger birds for older (brant are abundant here). If mounted, cutting out the down feathers and regrooming helps. Some black dyes will also cover up the light gray undercolor. Above applies only to front of body and rump. As for the center of the back, the longer scapular feathers should cover the back. You didn,t mount the brant too wide did you?
are many. The manikin may be too large, you may not have sufficiently degreased the back skin, feather alignment may be disrupted or some combination of all of these. Downy feathers will always show up following frying if each feather track has not been properly cleaned. As the drying process proceeds, the feathers move and can create what you have described. Good Luck