When starting to taxidermy a quail, it is very important to study its aspect and its feathers. There are four layers of feathers: primary, secondary, tertial and covered feathers. Also, you must check for the sidepockets to be intact, as a lot of the pattern of the bird is rendered by them.

Now the various steps must be done carefully. You should start with stripping a wing down with your thumbnail, down to the elbow, where radius and ulna are starting. Take care and don’t cut off the humerus. You should also try to recreate the inside as close to its previous state, as this should be helpful when reassembling it.

You can use some corn, which will ensure traction and will enable you to hold on to it, by working the wing down and thus separating the feathers from the ulna. Once that is done, you should remove the muscle tissues and cut the tendons loons at the point of attachment. The next step is to scrape the back side of the scalpel, scrapping the meat from the area and cleaning it up. Now you can see the bones and tell the difference between them – the ulna is larger and the radius is smaller. Pay attention not to break any bones.

As far as the tail section is concerned, in order to keep the feathers intact, scrapers should be used. Also, another useful tool is the wire brush, which offers more control and enables you to manipulate the section very well.

After having prepared the body of the quail, you should make sure that it has a nice run of the breast and neck. The neck will be glued to the head of the quail, after the necessary cutting is done. Should you want to smooth things up, try making a trachea and an esophagus underneath the throat, thus smoothing the transition from the head to the neck.

At the end, glue must be applied so that the filling can be connected to the feathers for a long time. After you finish, you have to make sure that the body has the right position and that everything lines up good.