Beards, spurs, wings , tails and empty shotgun shells....

[turkeyfeathers]

Just curious of what some you guys/gals save from your birds.

I always save the spurs. Someday I'll actually get them off all the feet I've thrown in my bucket and make a nice lanyard

Wings go to a friend who fletches arrows for primitive arrows.

Have only saved two fans over the years. A memorable hunt with my brother and the monarch from this year I've been hunting for years. The rest I give to my brother who uses them to tie trout flies.

Beards, again only saved above two. Probably should have saved them all

Empty shells go on the window sill with a few nice feathers of each bird in it. Window sill is getting pretty full which isn't a bad problem to have

Breasts routinely get dry rubbed, wrapped in bacon and smoked with apple wood chips.

[Green Trumpeter]

I always keep spurs, beards and empty shells.  Have kept a few tails.  I write a little note about the hunt and the bird and put that inside the empty shell.

[guesswho]

Funny you put the feet in a bucket, that's where I put my spurs.   I don't waste much from a bird.  I take the heart, liver, gizzard and any meat we don't eat and cook it in a crock pot.  Then I take the meat off the bones and mix it with my dogs food.  Then the wing bones are nice and clean and go to a call maker who doesn't like stinky packages in the mail.   I also pull the secondary and primary wing feathers along with the tail feathers and they go to people who tie flies, paint etc.  The beards go on one of my beard boards depending on where he's killed.  The heads are frozen and go to a taxidermist who uses them.    The empty shells wind up in the trash unless it's a miss or special moment, then I write the date and circumstances on the shell and  then it goes on the appropriate board.   When I get finished there's not much left, but it's returned to the woods.

[Tail Feathers]

If you know any beekeepers, I'm told they really like the tailfeathers for beekeeping.  For sweeping the bees off stuff I was told.

[ncturkey]

I eat every bit of the meat off every turkey I kill. I have every beard, feet with spurs. I have two full body mounted birds. All of the others are dried out and on the wall. Each fan is special. I also have two euro skull mounts I am working on. One is my BIL first bird. I also save every shell. The date is engraved in each shell and the tag is placed in side the shell. I have a story wrote down for every bird. Plus I have stories for the misses and the days with not bird. I even have the shell from each bird I missed. I love to save everything but I know when my walls and shells are full I will have to stop saving very fan. I do donate a lot of the wing feathers to Indian Tribes. They wild turkey is such a beautiful bird I can not bring myself to toss them away.   

[Cut N Run]

I made a necklace for my nephew with the spurs off some of the turkeys I killed.  I knapped the stone spear point and hafted it into a piece of deer antler with some sinew from a deer I killed a few years ago with my crossbow.  I've made a few others for folks who like how this one turned out.

Jim

[Kywoodsman]

I kept the fans off the first 3 birds I ever killed. I've also kept the beards and spurs off all of the birds I've ever killed and of course the breasts get fried up.