How to Preserve Birds Before Taxidermy

Preserve your birds to look their best with these taxidermy tips

With taxidermy becoming as expensive as it is (and for good reason) we want you to know exactly how to keep your trophy as perfect as possible before taking it to your taxidermist. The best ways to preserve birds before taxidermy are different than other mammals, mainly because birds are fragile and have delicate feathers. This fall, when you shoot your bird to be mounted, follow our advice and it will look just as good then as it did flying in the sky.

Keep it Clean

Keeping your animal clean is a good way to ensure that it doesn’t get broken and stays looking nice. Having a clean bird wont keep mud or other grit in the feathers and the skin will look nicer for the final product.

Keep out Oxygen

Freeze your birds to preserve them to take to your taxidermist

Oxygen sucks the moisture out of the skin and feathers and this is bad for the mount. If you shoot a bird and want to mount it, put it in a plastic zip loc bag and squeeze all the air out. Then put another bag over that and squeeze the air out. This will ensure that there is no oxygen in the bags. You should put the head under the wing, so that when it’s frozen solid, it wont break if it gets bumped into.

Freeze a Bird in a Bag of Water

One way to preserve a mount is to put the entire bird after getting it wet, into a bag full of water. Freezing the entire bird like this can preserve it for decades and will keep all oxygen out of bag. This is the best way to preserve a bird, but can be difficult if you shoot a larger bird.

Follow this advice and everyone will be asking you how to preserve birds before you take them to the taxidermist when they see all your beautiful mounts at home.