I mounted a deer head last week where the ears were all shredded from the buck fighting. I couldn't even open up the ears past the midsection because they were so bad. Here's what I did and I'd appreciate any feedback on what you think about my technique. I opened the ears as best I could and put the cape through my normal fleshing, salting, pickling and tanning process (Lutan-f). I used super glue to piece back together the ear tips and then mounted the head. I couldn't use ear liners, so I left the cartilage in. I couldn't even use Bondo, so I just applied Buckeye Supreme inside the open portion of the ears and clayed in the ear butt. I took an ear liner and cut the base off it and used it as a shaper on the inside of the ear. I used cardboard on the back of the ear and clipped it together to hold it's shape with cloths pins. The mount is dried now and the ears did hold their shape well. I will use epoxy-scalp to fill in any crevices where the tears in the ear were glued and will paint over the ear as usual with my airbrush. I'm going to let it dry of another week first though, but so far it looks good.
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Just did a huge south texas buck with an ear that looked like Yoda's hand. I had the same problem, but the customer said he liked the "character" of the deer. So i did what you did and it turned out fine. But even if it didn't hey it would just look like it got that way from being ripped.
it may not work on something as bad as yours was, but it worked great for the problem I had.
I have people cut the ears off deer that they are going to butcher, but not mount. Then I went ahead and tanned them, and removed the cartilage and let dry. Just a mild soak will rehydrate the thin ear skin. Then use the ear skin from the spares to fix the blowed up ones.
I had a deer just this year that had a hole blown through the top of it's ear and was about the size of a half dollar. I took and trimmed the hole up so it wasn't all jagged, then cut the replacement skin to fit the hole and overlap the edges by about 1/4". I epoxied them good so they would stick and whala !
Also, ( I know I'm rambling ) I've found that if the hair color on the replacement hair is too dark, that some of the wonderful peroxide that we use to whiten the skulls works great to lighten the replacement hair. Just put it on a little at a time and when you think it's gotten to the right color rinse it out good with a damp sponge and plain water, and pat dry with a towel.
that I use earliners underneath !