What is the EASIEST way to split ringneck pheasant wattles? What is the EASIEST way to inject them and what do you inject them with? I having using Breakthrough bird manual and it stsated nothing about splitting. The pheasant I worked on last time the wattles shrunk and look terrible.
Thanks
Return to Bird Taxidermy Category Menu
I have had pretty good luck using a lip tucking tool & working it back and forth across the seam while putting a little pressure on from the outside. works better than cutting, just go carefully, takes practice ! good luck
Splitting pheasant wattles is tedious, time-consuming and frequently annoying, but it's absolutely necesssary for quality work.
There is no need to inject them once they are split.
...turning the skin inside out. If you look around the eye you will see a darker area from rest of the skin. This darker area is the underside of the wattle. Find the border of the darker area vs. the lighter colored skin area and use a scapel to apply slight pressure all the way around the perimeter of the darker wattle area. You will begin to see this area open up - actually it looks like the border is getting wider. This opened up/wider looking area is what your after. You can put a little water on the wattle to make the darker area a little more darker and easier to see. Go slow, a little at a time, and be patient so you won't cut through the skin. Since your only applying a slight pressure with your scapel you may want to go around the wattle border to couple of times until it seems it not getting any wider. I then work clay through the eye hole to fill out the wattle when mounting. Use reference to get to correct shape.
Do you end up with a pocket or what? I'm not sure what splitting the wattles actually accomplishes. I would sure like to have better pheasant heads but am having trouble getting this.