I have a customer with a Sage Grouse who wants it mounted in the mating strutt position. Does anyone have suggestions as to how to recreate the air sacs on the chest? I have looked at the major suppliers and they have no air sacs for Sage Grouse. Please help!
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When mounting a sage grouse I use the real skin on the sacks.
They really don't blow way out like a ruff grouse and the skin is pretty tough in the sack area.
If you don't have a big mature bird to start with in mating plumage you wont get the job done anyway. I use cotton to expand them
I killed one a few years back in CA but the season was the first weekend in oct. and the plumage just didn't allow for the strutting pose so I did it in a flying pose. Now the season here is in sept. even worse! if this bird was just harvested I would think a strutting pose would be a poor choice.
If your customer has seen photos of strutting sage grouse then he will probably be very disappointed when he discovers that his bird looks nothing like them. Sage grouse season comes too early, and they are almost never fully feathered out. The white fluff is missing or is very sparse, and the little "wire" feathers are gone as well.
If he still wants it strutting, you can carve then sand some airsacs out of foam and stretch some thin, wet buckskin over them. Pin it in place. That yellowish color gives you a good background and a natural skin texture. Airbrush some dull grey/green over it to shade it some and then the sacs are ready to install. I always cut out the real ones because they are hard to control and usually have at least one hole. If they stay perfect I think you could use caulk to help smooth them over a carved and sanded foam insert, but otherwise I would just use a scrap of buckskin.
Thanks for the responses, they are helpful. I don't have the bird just yet and I don't know when he killed it. I will let him know about the information and see what he wants to do.
when i said a sage grouses air sack don't stick out like a ruff grouse,
i meant like a prairie chicken a ruff does not display air sacks. sorry
Where can I find a form for a sage grouse and what kind of eyes do you use.