Tumbling Question?

I have just started taxidermy. I wanted to know if you had to tumble your birds or is there something else I can do? And I can I use just plain old borax in the tumbler?

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for a hobbyist

you truly don't need a tumbler. you can dry and fluff with a hairdryer or electric pool inflater by hand.

trash bag

If u dont do many birds you can just get some tumbling medium and tumble them in a good thick garbage bag. Takes about 10 minutes just rolling them around. Steve

It would determinie what kind of birds you doing

This is my opinion. When I do turkeys without a tumber, I waste more than half a day on drying feathers with a blow dryer. Wife won't let me put them in the spin cycle of her washing machine.

So then I used a barrel I put one baffle in and rolled it around in the yard. This was agravating. but If I had my kids were home, this was not too awlful bad. This took it from a couple of hours to around like 15 mins.

But for small birds you can do exactly what these guys are saying. But in a bag and toss it around a little and it works fine.

so in my opinion, it depends on the size of birds you plan on doing. Even for a hobbiest, I would think would want one for large birds.

Rob

Blow it...

I blow mine with a hair drier(NO HEAT). It takes a while, but I like the results better, and you don't get the borax and tumbler material in the down.

Here's a couple of Idea's

Go get a big pickle bucket from a fast food place...clean it of course...get some corn cob grit and put in your duck/pheasant...Large Geese will be to big...and roll the bucket in your yard/driveway...Let gravity be your friend...Everybody says blow dry with a hair dryer, but something that works much better is a shop vac w/the blower feature...You can get them for around $50 bucks at most hardware stores...Even Kmart/Wallmart/ tractor supplies...It blows out cool air with good pressure...Much better than a hair dryer!

Tumbler

I use a pillow case with corn cob fines. Then blow dry

Thanks

Thank everyone for your responses. They all will help out a ton. Thanks

OR

I spin skins in the washing machine,towel dry..A simple 5-6hp shop vac does a turkey/goose skin in less than 30 minutes..Use a restrictor/cone/attatchment to increase velocity and POOF they dry quick..
I gave up with the mess of tumblers a couple years ago.

Shop vac.

As one person said,shop vac. works great and saves time. I just did two turkeys and dried them in less than half an hour each.Try it,it works.