I mounted a turkey last week & it has a funny smell but not like rotten meat. I did use about three tubes of caulk ...maybe its the combo of that smell a turkey has & the caulk....but I just can't figure out what the smell is. Its not bad but not good either. Is there anything I can spray on it to try & kill the smell, I thought about using "fabreeze". Any ideas?
Thanks
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If you removed all of that, including all the wing joints, then your smeller is out of whack. Set the bird out in the sun or in the attic to dry. Stay away from anything that would wet the bird at this point. You'll only manage to gum up your feathers.
DON'T! DO NOT Put it outside. If it smells you are asking for trouble if it goes outside. There is not a lot that can smell bad unless you did not flesh it good. If you did not flesh it good enough or if you did not clean the wings out enough. You will have flies all over it in a couple hours then in a couple days you will have maggots in it. There want or should I say should not be much to eat so the maggots will come out. But if you think it smells now just wait. What I would suggest is to let it dry good (four or five weeks ) in a bug free room. The smell should fade out. Oh I forgot to tell you about the maggots cleaning the meat off the legs too. You will lose all the leg scales. I think if you put your nose right up to the turkeys wing you will determine where the smell is comeing from. You have to get all that meat out. Hope this is not to late. But do not put it outside. Craig
I'd STILL put it outside in the sun unless of course, you're in Somalia. IF there is meat left in that bird, no one is going to be able to stand being in the same room with it to begin with and the mount is in dire trouble from the start. PUT IT OUTSIDE IN THE SUN and IF YOU HAVE SOMALIAN FLIES, cover it with a screen. Geez.
It is not hyper to warn not to put it in the sunn....Its common sense.Flies will get to it outside no matter what you cover it with. Your better off to put it in a room you dont go into much. Often times, if you dont pull the tendons in the legs, they can get funky.
Have you done turkeys before? They DO have a funk as they dry. I think most birds have that "drying bird smell," no matter how clean we get em. Turkeys are just bigger. I think that is the not good/not bad smell you describe. Is it sort of a dry, perfumy, slightly unpleasant smell, almost like wet socks that dried up un the heat vent kind smell? Here is one reason why turkeys have a bit of an odor, I think. My dog found some turkey legs while I was out this spring. The spurs were over 1 1/2 inches. The legs had been in the outdoors on a grassy knoll for some time. The rest of the bird was picked clean. I decided to keep the spurs so I took the very dried looking legs home. Holy Jesus did they stink when I cut the leg above and below the spur! Even if we inject those legs, there is some serious stuff in there. Give it two weeks to dry and then see how he smells.
Did you open and clean the area beyond the radius and ulna? There is a bunch of meat in there as well that should come out. Some people will inject this area, but cleaning it out is the way to go.
Dont spray it with anything. If there is a problem, the current smell is the least of your worries.
OK, George maybe I did get hyper. But I would never put a good cleaned bird or any other type of animal outside to dry. You are only asking for trouble. I don't think the screen would work either. Thanks Craig
A "good clean bird" won't smell. Or at least mine don't.
If you didn't remove the bone marrow, it will have a smell also.
I doubt in over 45 years I've ever removed the marrow from a dozen birds. I don't penetrate the bones with my wires, but instead run them along the outside like old J.W. Elwood told me to. If a bone is fractured, I'll clean it then, but otherwise, it stays intact and I've never had one stink on me yet.
If you wait until the turkey is completely dry, the smell will most likely disappear by then. It can be scary, but once everything is dry, the leftover meat has turned into jerkey and won't smell. But next time, make a little cut at the very last joint on the wing, scrape out all the meat, and sew it back up. It only takes a few extra minutes, and you won't have to worry about the pesky smell:o)
Always remove the marrow. No matter what...... ( Common sense)
my buddy didnt clean out the bone marrow out of the legs and it smelled a little but not horrible
Your problem could be any of those mentioned above, and only you know if you cleaned and fleshed everything like you needed to. I use silicone caulk in turkeys all the time and sometimes end up with a strange odor, kind of like caulk smell and kind of like wet turkey skin smell. The first time I noticed it it kind of freaked me out but it eventually goes away and as the bird dries everything gets back to normal. As far as putting the bird outside, as long as it is a nice sunny dry day, being outside can help a lot with getting rid of any unwanted odors.