[Cutthroat1954]

Hi: I just got a woodduck skin from a friend. It is still a tad moist on the flesh side.( but was treated with mothballs.). Could do a proper job by drying with borax, but am tempted to just pluck the barred flanks and pair them up along with any other flank feathers and maybe some of the breast feathers. Would I be missing anything? Thanks.

 

[Jabrowning24]

I'll msg my address, you can ship it to me and I'll handle properly! I'd say either option would do fine, I'd rather have the whole skin personally but match up the ones you want and your good to go

 

[Robert Meiser]

Jabrowning <> Be interested to share time on our local waters with you ... Our shop is in Central Point

541-770-4766

Meiz

 

[Cutthroat1954]

Jabrowning>>. 😄. I hear you. Thanks. Living out west, we don't see many wood ducks. Guess I'll nail everything to a drying board and spread fine powdered borax on it. Might as well do a proper job on it.

 

[flytyer]

I would just pluck the feathers I was going to use, wash them in Woollite, clear Ivory dish soap, or Synthrapol and when they dried, I'd put the barred feathers in a zip-lock, and the unbarred in a separate zip-lock. If you wanted to keep and use other feathers, do the same.

 

[Jabrowning24]

I have a creek that runs through the property and have a family of woodies that lives here. Today there was 4 drakes and it took all my power to just watch! I'm gonna build some boxes and hopefully I can give them a bit of a sanctuary that will eventually bring feathers as they multiply!

 

[BJay]

Hey Cutthroat
I do lots of birds. All I do is pin the skin, feathers down, to a piece of cardboard with straight pins, crape off any fat and rub with borax. and leave for a couple of weeks in a dry clean place. Pin the bottom of the skin first, tail end of the bird, then stretch and pin the top of the skin then go around the skin with lots of pins. If you want to make it bug proof just add a small amount of borax to the zip lock bag that you would put the skin into and shake it up a bit. The skin will last forever. I still have pieces of pheasant skins around that I tanned in the 60"s when I lived in Alberta. With the borax on them no bugs. If you do the wings they must be deboned before pinning.
Bjay

 

[Cutthroat1954]

Thanks to all. I'm going to take another really good look at the skin. Tempted to try to preserve the whole thing if it looks OK.