Turkey taxidermy

Research Mannikins has a defatting tool for birds. Its like a little rake. I used a lot before I got my wire wheel flesher. I still use it on grouse and hard to get to areas with the wheel on quail up to turkeys. When used with borax, it will work well for you. I use two. One with the "prongs" wide and one with them pushed more together.

 

Yep. You need to use borax with it to get the best results.

 

I hand tumble in a plastic tub with ground corn cob grit.

 

I would get a good DVD and watch it . I pressure wash mine the clean it up a little with a wire wheel . You have to get it clean inside and out . Turkey are dirty from dusting you have to wash and wash when you think you got him clean wash him again. Get a DVD head quarters has a good one step by step.
Tommy

 

Along with the DVD from Headquarters, Taxidermy Training Unlimited has several great turkey DVDs. Taxidermy Insider has a couple of online video courses. It has over ten hours of instruction.

 

I sometimes use a soft wire brush for a drill to get problem areas, you have to be careful but I bet you could do a whole turkey that way. I would like to try the pressure washer trick but I presently do not have the location to do so.

 

3beras, kind of like a mini flesher for birds. Not a bad idea.

Smittee, you are pretty well set. I forgot to tell you that I use curved scissors a lot when working on upland birds including turkeys. With the videos, the defatting tool, a scalpel, curved scissors and the wire brush trick you should be able to do a good job of it, unless you have a pressure washer to try out.

 

Hmmm...If you are using a pressure washer on a turkey what do you thing the maximum safe PSI should be to keep from ripping it up?

 

I have no idea but many swear by it and you can watch videos online of people fleshing them with a washer.

 

Here's mine!

 

Since I don't do turkeys for customers, I have never timed it. I hang the turkey skin to drip dry. I then put a towel up inside the skin and lay that onto another towel and roll it up. I leave it for 15 minutes to 30 minutes. Next, I place the skin in the cob and cover it. I then go work on something else for a while. Then I roll the skin around the cob, lifting, laying down, covering, roll around and repeat. Maybe 10 minutes or so. Then to the blowdryer.

 

I'll hand tumble a turkey skin just like SoCal's pic for about 15 minutes after towel drying per Tanglewood. I'm guessin I have 12-15 lbs of corn cob grit in there. I have a mix of fine and large grit. I find that you're pretty close to bein as dry as you're gonna get after about 10 minutes... and after 15 minutes I feel like I'm wastin my time. At that point, I feel more productive with the shop vac.

 

Yup, about 10-15 minutes just to get the feathers looking normal. I then proceed with the mounting and finish the drying with air. I use compressed air but before I had a good compressor I used my shop vac. Most you can put the hose on the output side and blow air instead of sucking air. As for my wire wheel flesher I converted my wire wheel/grinder by stealing a serving tray plastic cover from the wifey.... she's still looking for that thing!

 

Yup!... I used a clear plastic tote from the big box store, I'm afraid of my wife!

 

a bench grinder with a wire wheel but be careful. their not as forgiving as a bird wheel.

 

Can’t answer the fleshing question because I have a bird flesher, but you don’t have to tumble turkey. It just speeds up the drying time. I wash super well with a ton of dawn, then soak in mineral spirits, and then spin in my washer and blow dry.