this is my first turkey. i have done a few phesants now and a chuckar. with those birds i didnt do anything special to the legs. at the show in michigan, i was told, by the judge, to inject the legs to prevent the shrinkage i had. i plan to do that with this turkey, but my main question is: do you do anything else to the leg to preserve it. such as soak it in anything. i did attend the cally morris seminar at the michigan show, but he already had that part done and didnt really elaborate on what he did with them. also i plan to send the head to cally or someone for freeze drying. any suggestions there. any help would be appreciated with these legs,or any other things i may run accrosed would be appreciated. thanks in advance.
bob
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all you need to do is use a birds foot injection fluid such as masters blend or fantastic cast injection grade start at the toes and work your way up the lef after each injection use a t-pin to plug the holes, let dry at least twenty four hours pull pins out and close up holes with epoxy optional step paint the legs if needed some customers don't want them painted
hope this helps some
joe
hey bob!
you will need to clean the tendons out of main part of leg. skin down top and cut. then thru hole on bottom, pull out with needle nose pliers or something. then inject toes as above.
hope that helps, email or call if you have any questions
good luck
brian
ok that answers my questions. thanks for the help
bob
I never take the tendons out of a turkey leg. The rod will go in the leg just fine with them in there. If you take them out, it's just more to inject plus you now have a cut at the bottom of the foot for your injection fluid to run out of. Run a rod in the middle joint of the middle toe & up the leg. It will work fine plus save you injection fluid & time. Everyone does it different, but this works great for me.
Thanks for the tip Terry, I read up a lot about this and your method seems to be prefered for both novice to advanced taxidermists. I have 2 turkeys in the in the skinning process right now that I was wondering what I would do. Now I know! Quick question, can you do this and freeze the bird after or must you do it just before mounting? Thanks again for the useful tip. ~Hopeful Novice