How to Preserve a Sandhill Crane for Mounting

You just put a sandhill on the ground. Maybe it's your first one, maybe it's the one you've been drawing for the last four years to get. Either way, your buddies are already talking about how good the breasts are going to be, and you've got a decision in front of you that you cannot take back once you make it. So here's how to preserve a sandhill crane for mounting, straight up: the bird goes in the freezer whole, wrapped the right way, before anybody puts a knife in it.

That's it. That's the whole answer. But there's a lot of good stuff underneath it that nobody tells you, and if you're reading this from a blind somewhere in North Dakota or Montana, it's worth five minutes.

First, the honest part about pin feathers

Talk to enough taxidermists and you'll hear the same thing over and over. Early season cranes are rough to mount. Those birds are still carrying sandhill crane pin feathers, and a bird full of pins does not finish out the way you pictured it. The feathers sit wrong, the bird looks patchy, and there is only so much a taxidermist can do about it. Late season birds, the mature ones that have had time to finish out, make the better mounts almost every time.

We're telling you that up front because it's true, not because it helps us sell anything. And here's the thing: it's actually an argument for freezing the bird instead of against it. You do not have to stand in a field in September and decide whether this particular bird is a wall bird. You cannot tell from there anyway, not with any real confidence, and not while your hands are cold and everybody's ready to go. Preserve it properly, get it in the freezer, and let a taxidermist look at it when you both have time. If the bird isn't good enough, you'll know then and you've lost nothing but a little freezer space. If it is good enough, you didn't ruin it by guessing wrong.

The worst version of this is the one we hear about the most. A guy breasts out a beautiful mature bird, gets home, looks at the photos, and realizes what he had. There's no getting that back.

Can I eat it and still mount it?

This is the question everybody asks, and it deserves a real answer instead of a runaround.

Crane is called the ribeye of the sky for a reason. Most people who shoot them are shooting them to eat them, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But our Large Bird Preservation Kit is a whole bird kit, and everything we tell you below is whole bird instruction. If that crane is going on the wall, it goes in the bag whole.

If you want to try to do both, call your taxidermist before you cut. Not after. Different taxidermists want the bird handled different ways, some of them will work with you on it and some of them absolutely will not, and the only person who can tell you what works for your bird and your mount is the person who's going to be doing the work. We're not going to guess at it here and have you find out in his shop that you took the wrong thing off. One phone call, before the knife comes out, and you'll know.

How to preserve a sandhill crane for mounting, step by step

These are the directions that come printed on the card in the kit. They're the same directions we give for any big bird, and they're the same answer to how to freeze a bird for the taxidermist no matter what you shot. Do them in order and don't overthink it.

1. Lightly groom the feathers and rinse off any blood. Light is the word. You're not washing the bird, you're just getting it looking right and getting the blood off before it sets.
2. Gently place the gauze ball inside the mouth.
3. Wet the towelettes, then wrap the head and bill along with both feet. Use the straps to hold the towelettes in place. Head and bill, and both feet. Those are the parts that dry out and get damaged, and those are the parts a taxidermist needs in good shape.
4. Lay the head of the bird back onto the body.
5. Fill out the federal migratory bird tag with the pencil provided, then place it inside the bag. More on this in a second, because it matters more than people think.
6. Gently place the bird inside the preservation bag and squeeze out any air. Then get it in the freezer. Air is what causes freezer burn, and freezer burn is what wrecks a bird that was otherwise perfect.

Beyond that, leave the bird alone. Don't cut anything, don't pull anything, don't try to help. A taxidermist would rather have a whole untouched bird than one somebody tried to prep.

The federal tag is not just paperwork

Sandhills are migratory game birds. Under 50 CFR 20.36, the moment you leave one in somebody else's hands, for processing, for storage, or for taxidermy, it has to go with a tag carrying your signature, your address, the number and species of birds, and the date you took it. Dropping a bird off at a taxidermist is exactly that situation. On top of that, the USFWS Migratory Bird Taxidermy permit, form 3-200-8, says the tag may come off during the work but has to be retained and reattached after mounting, and has to stay on until the mount is handed back to you.

So that little toe tag is not a formality and it's not something your taxidermist can write for you after the fact. It's part of the bird's paperwork from the moment you pick it up until it's hanging on your wall. That's exactly why there's a tag and a pencil in the kit, in the bag, where you'll actually have them. Pencil, not pen, because pen quits on you when things are wet or cold.

Will a crane actually fit?

Yes. A sandhill fits the Large Bird Preservation Kit.

It's a fair thing to ask, because a sandhill is a genuinely big bird and plenty of bird bags aren't built for one. This one is. Canada geese, snows, specklebellies, sandhill crane, and turkey are all on that list because they all fit, not as a maybe. Bag it whole the way it says above, squeeze the air out, and get it in the freezer.

What this does for you

Sandhill crane taxidermy lives or dies on what happened in the first hour after the bird hit the ground. A taxidermist can fix a lot of things. He cannot fix a dried out bill, he cannot fix a freezer burned wing, and he cannot fix feet that got beat up in the back of the truck. Everything above exists to hand him a bird that still looks like it did in the field.

Season timing is worth thinking about too. North Dakota opens September 18 and runs through November 14. Montana's been open since September 1 and runs through October 30. Minnesota's northwest zone has been open since September 12 and runs through October 18. Kansas runs its own schedule, and the Central Zone there doesn't open until November 11, held back on purpose for whooping crane migration. Check your own state, because they are genuinely all different on this one.

The kit

The Large Bird Preservation Kit is $29.99 and it has everything above in one bag. Gauze, towelettes, straps, the federal migratory bird tag, a pencil, the preservation bag, and the directions printed right on the card so you're not trying to remember any of this with cold hands.

It doesn't replace your taxidermist. It gets your bird to him in the shape he needs it in, whether you drop it off next week or in two years. That's the whole idea. Thirty bucks in the blind against a sandhill crane mount you only get one shot at.

Good luck out there this season. Shoot straight, and if you put down a good one, take care of it before you do anything else.