was wondering if i can flesh a bird and mount it later if i freeze it? thks
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yep, i freeze in clean water in a big bag ziplock after i skin, flesh, wash with soap and then get every single bit of soap spuds out of it.
I'm courious as to why you freeze your bird in water after you skin it.
I use borax after skinning,fleshing,degreasing then freeze and have had some bird skins in the freezer for up to a yr and haven't had any problems thawing ,washing and mounting them.........just courious.
New guy , yes you can skin and freeze a bird . I do this all the time with large birds to save room in the freezer plus large birds take a long time to thaw out if frozen whole . The feathers keep them insulated and it may take more than a duck to defrost a goose . Just make sure the meat side is folded together to get air out or it will dry up in the freezer . I rub a little water inside the body before folding up . You can keep them in the freezer for months , even a year or more this way . Rick
Dont tuck the feathers inside the fatty area on a bird with white or light feathers. I learned by trial and error, it can turn the feathers yellow
I freeze the skin in ziploc freezer bags filled with water also. It prevents shrinkage especially in the feet and wingtips. I would never skin a bird and leave it in the freezer for more than a couple months. It is just begging for more work rehydrating or worse. I recently mounted a surf scoter that was frozen skinned in water. It mounted up just like a fresh bird even though it was 8 years old!
In my view the simple answer to your question is absolutely. You can definitely flesh a bird, freeze it, thaw it and mount it. You can freeze a bird without degreasing it and it will be OK, you can freeze a bird half way through the mounting process and thaw it later to finish. Opinions always are generated with regard to the "best way" or a way to address a particular problem that happened when freezing a bird and so forth. I suspect that any of the above mentioned techniques will work for the given application and work fine. My personal method involves a vaccum packer. I believe that success in freezing is to preclude air getting to the item frozen. I skin all my birds as soon as possible and then refreeze - some degreased and some not - but in all cases they are frozen wet and in a vaccum. My personal motivation is freezer space. 10 greater canada geese take a lot of room when one adds a turkey or two, misc ducks and upland birds it exceeds my freezer space. I have some birds frozen for 5+ years and they mount perfectly Good luck.