How to Preserve a Goose for Mounting (The Right Way)

Early Canada goose season is open across a lot of the country right now, and if you've already got a bird on the strap, congratulations. The work isn't over yet. What you do in the next hour matters just as much as the shot that put that goose on the ground, especially if you're planning on getting it mounted.

We put together this guide because "how to preserve a goose for mounting" is one of the questions we hear the most this time of year, and honestly, it's one hunters get wrong more often than you'd think, usually by trying to use the wrong tools for a bird this size. Let's walk through it.

Don't Do the Things Your Instincts Tell You To Do

Field dressing a bird for the table and preparing one for the taxidermist are two completely different jobs. If a mount is the plan, skip these:

• Don't gut the bird. Leave the bird alone.
• Don't pluck any feathers, even to check for shot damage.
• Don't wring the neck or handle it roughly. A twisted or broken neck can tear skin that's already under stress from the cold.

Instead, lightly groom the feathers and rinse off any blood, then lay the head back gently onto the body and handle the bird gently from there on out. Every bit of care you put in now is less work your taxidermist has to fix later.

Cold Is the Whole Game

If there's one thing that ruins more goose capes than anything else, it's time. Warm feathers and warm skin sitting in a truck bed or a boat all day is how a cape slips, and once that happens there's no fixing it. Get your bird cool as fast as you possibly can, and get it fully cold or frozen as soon as you're able to.

This is where a proper preservation kit earns its keep. Here's the actual process: a gauze ball goes gently inside the mouth, then wet the towelettes that come with the kit and wrap the head and bill along with both feet, using the straps included to hold everything in place. Fill out the federal migratory bird tag with the pencil provided and tuck it inside the bag. Then the bird goes into the sealed preservation bag, squeeze out any air, and it's ready for the freezer. Simple process, but it buys you real time.

Freezer burn on the exposed skin around the bill and feet is one of the more common things we hear taxidermists flag on birds that sat around too long before anyone wrapped them properly, so don't skip the towelette step even if you're planning to drop the bird off soon.

Skip the Duck Kit. Grab the Large Bird Kit.

Here's the part that trips people up, and it's the main reason we wanted to write this post. Our Duck Preservation Kit is built and sized for birds like mallards, wood ducks, wigeon, teal, gadwall, and canvasback. A mature Canada goose is a different animal entirely, and we mean that literally. You're often looking at a 10 to 12 pound bird with a lot more surface area to cover, and the Duck Kit just isn't built to handle it.

That's exactly what the Large Bird Preservation Kit is for. It's sized for Canada goose, snow goose, specklebelly, sandhill crane, and turkey, the birds where a standard duck-sized kit falls short. If you shot a goose this season, this is the Canada goose preservation kit you actually want in your truck.

Chasing both ducks and geese on the same hunt? Check out the Waterfowl Bundle so you're covered no matter what comes into the decoys.

The Short Version

Leave the bird intact, groom and rinse it, pack the gauze and towelettes on the head, bill, and feet, fill out your federal tag, seal it up with the air squeezed out, and get it into a freezer as soon as you reasonably can. Use a kit sized for the bird you actually shot, a large bird preservation kit for geese, not a duck kit. That's really the whole job of good goose taxidermy field care, and it's the difference between handing your taxidermist a bird they're excited to work with and one that's already fighting them.

If you're headed out after ducks or turkeys too, we've got field care guides for those birds as well, worth a read before you're standing in a marsh trying to remember the steps.

Good luck out there this season, and take care of your birds. They're worth it.