My partial contribution regarding wing preservation:
From my vast inexperience in preserving a total of one turkey fan (and it worked very well), I can say that the fan has stayed in place and is rot-free following the traditional process of:
1. cleaning/scraping all the tissue possible from the end of the tail fan (crow wing)
2. pinning the tail fan (crow wing) in its display position to a piece of thick cardboard and
3. packing the raw end in rock salt and let it set a month or until completely dessicated.
Why wouldn't this process work for crow wings?
-- Edited by Old Artilleryman on Sunday 27th of January 2013 09:15:23 PM
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"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." -- Andrew Fletcher 1698
Often, on this website, we read of contributors trying to attach real crow wings to plastic decoys, to emulate a live crow's appearance. If anyone has ever accomplished this feat, then it must be a military secret, as I have'nt yet read of anyone revealing how they attached the wings.
We can clearly understand how real crow wings attached to a plastic decoy, would give a more alive-look, and improve our success at crow hunting.
I think it will be worth while, and productive, if a collective effort by all of us, can solve this problem. But there are some task ahead of us!
The fun part: go out and kill some crows, to procure the real wings.
The semi-hard part: get the wings preserved, by a taxidermist, or find out how to do this ourselves, which may be a lot cheaper.
The harder part: find some glue that will permanently attach the wings to the decoy.
The hardest part: devise a method to protect the wings during transportation and actual use, and yet be easy and quick to use in the field.
It may take a few months, or longer, to solve the problem, but I think it can be done.
I once tried to attach wings to a decoy, with clear shrink wrap. Did'nt work. The wrap would'nt shrink enough to fit the crows curvaceous body.
If you come up with a solution to any of the task, except killing some crows, which we all can do now, let us know on this website.
Maybe Doug Wigfield at Crowmart will offer a prize, for each person, or group of persons, who solve each problem involved. The rest of us can re-emburse Doug for the prize!
When I first started crow hunting I could not find decoys locally so I made some with water bottles and dried crow wings. I packed the wings in salt for several days then hung them in the top of my shed to dry. Once dry I glued them to the black painted bottles with liquid nails. For the head I used some plastic lemons I found at a craft store. They worked fine but I soon upgraded to full body plastic decs.
There is a taxi trick where they skin the wings and deflesh them leaving the bones attached to the skin. When they are done they return the skin over the bones keeping the shape intact.
I have 3 dozen in my shop freezer to try my hand at taxi this off season. Going to try to make some feathered decoys like the one Skip posted recently.
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
An idea I had to transport them was to make custom shaped foam boxes for them. I am going to wrap them in plastic wrap and half fill a shoe box with Great Stuff place the wrapped bird into the box and let it set up. Next apply more wrap over the set foam and decoy and fill the box with more great stuff. Once cured, you will have two halves that have created a mold that perfectly fits the crow. Do this with the largest one you have and it will fit all others. The mold could be trimmed down to smaller size that would fit into a decoy bag. You could put several of these in a decoy bag.
For more instructions on making molds Google silicone molds. Just substitute foam for the silicone.
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"If money can fix it, it ain't broke" The great theologian and my crow hunting partner AW.
If you had a bunch of the hard bodied plastic decoys that you didn't care about cutting up, this might work...
Cut out the wing portions of the decoys. Fill the decoys with that expanding foam until its coming out of the now wingless decoy. Shape the foam that expands from the wing holes of the decoy to fit the real crow wings. Glue/pin or otherwise somehow attach the wings to the decoy. The foam should help add stability and an anchor for the real wing without adding much weight.
Just an broad idea, but I don't have a hard bodied decoy to try it on so maybe someone else could try something similar.
Howdy, Crowbusters - Noticed this discussion about crow wings and couldn't help myself, just HAD to stick my nose in - it is pretty easy to taxi a crow wing.......I'm been trying to learn taxidermy the last couple years and have had modest success (crows were among my first "volunteers"). Cut the wing off right at the shoulder joint (if you flex the wing around a little you will feel the right spot pretty easy) - you will be leaving all the bones in the wing, connected by the tendons but the meat has to be removed. The upper part is very easy to peel back the skin and cut out the meat - doesn't get tricky until the last part where the primary feathers are attached to the last bone in the wing - carefully push with your thumbnail against the spot where the feathers meet the bone and the feather butts will pop free one at a time (feathers remain attached by the skin)- once you have cleaned out all the meat, coat the bones and inner surface of the skin with powdered Borax (taxidermists use Borax for almost everything) - it is a good preservative - you can also make the skinning process a lot easier by coating everything with Borax as you go as it is a great degreaser and makes everything much less slippery and easier to work with. Cut a straight piece out of a wire coat hangar and carefully push one end between the skin and feathers at the end of the wing - it is easy to pop the wire through the skin which is a no-no, probably will take a few tries to fish the wire through to the end without breaking the skin and then attach the wire by wrapping it with string or electrical tape to the "inboard" bones, leave some coat hangar uncut so you can attach it to whatever - if you were mounting the crow you would wrap and tie some cotton around the bones to take the place of the meat that you have removed. If you were mounting the crow all this would be done without cutting the wing off - would remain attached by the skin. Pull the skin back to the normal position - you can now bend the wing into whatever position you want and it will stay that way because of the coat hangar - poke some pins through the skin to attach it to a piece of soft wood or heavy cardboard an let it dry for a week or so, somewhere that mice and bugs won't bother it and well out of your wife's sight. Make sure to firmly pin the"inboard" end of the skin to the wood so it won't shrink back too much. If the wing is dirty or loaded with bug spray before you start you can wash it with warm water (not hot) and Dawn dish soap and dry with a hair drier set on cool.
If I'm going to be fooling around with crows in the house I leave the crow in a sealed plastig bag that i have sprayed with flea and tick killer for several days in a freezer - I'm hoping to reduce risk of West Nile virus and any other nasties that the bird might be carrying.
Make sure to use undamaged wings with good feathers and no broken bones.
This whole thing should be tried by all crow hunters to give you a better idea of how small the area is that you have to get pellets into - Feathers don't count !!!
Anybody that wants to learn more about this stuff should visit taxidermy.net - a terrific spot to get taxi info. If you think that crow hunters are fanatics wait until you check out the taxidermy crowd............
Leave the wings detachable. Get the wing preserved and set, (slowest part). Out of light but sturdy wire, (coat hanger) make a frame for the underside. Basically follow inside the shape of the wing leaving a pointed end sticking out past to attach to the body. An attachment has to be devised. Drill correct size hole in deek and glue insert. Some sort of plug in, nothing that screws in you end up beating up the feathers. A type of plastic anchor or a 1/4 turn cam, the ones they use on put together cheap vanities. Transporting just the wings will be easier than carrying fully spread decoys.
STEP 1- with a hatchet, chop off the wings and tail feathers from about 4 crows.
STEP 2- throw the wings and tail feathers up on the hot, metal, carport roof in the summer. (Leave them for about a month.
STEP 3- a month later climb up there and take the best 2 wings, (right and left) and about 6 good tail feathers.
STEP 4- with 40 grit sand paper, rough up the plastic decoy where the wings and tail feathers need to go. Then clen that roughed up spot with denatured alcohol or acetone.
STEP 5- steal your wife's hot glue gun and about 6 glue sticks. (After using it, deny, deny, deny.......)
STEP 6- Glue the wings/feathers in place. (Use a lot of glue)
When not in use, wrap the decoy in an old hand towel and set in its own small bucket.
After those wings have dried out up on that roof, I am unable to pull the feathers off of the wing with pliers. The quill will break first. I have tried it several different times. Also, after a month or 6 weeks of drying, there is no bad odor. Maybe just a little musty smell.
