pheasant tail feathers ...

A friend sent me some tail feathers from some pheasants he killed on a recent hunt. The feathers are not in clumps, rather, they are all separate. He sent me quite a few and I wanted to ask a question about storing them.

I have a large plastic container that they will fit in. Would it be safe to store them in this container and then put a piece of flea collar in it? Will that be sufficient to kill the bugs are do I need to put in the whole collar. I really don't want to lose these tails to bugs so any advice is welcome. What is my best course of action?

I know if the clumps were included this would be a no-brainer. I was not sure if the bugs actually dined on the tail feather or solely on the clump.

Thanks,
Greg

Greg,
I don't know about the flea collar. Here is advice given to me from members of the board and it works. Dust them with some borax and put them in the box. :tieone:

Btw, here is a great fly for those tails. I like both the regular and bead head:

http://www.flyanglersonline.com/flytyin ... part7.html

I put a moth ball in a plastic bag With the feathers. Someone on this forum said that it would work and still not put the fish off with the smell.

Cedar balls work well too, and they don't have the horrid smell like moth balls do. And don't seem to put the fish off.

I've had trashbags of skins and tails dropped off at my house--the skins dryed with borax and tails along with other long feathers sit on my fty tying table in a tall coffee cup,dried and put in the cup.-----Bill

Bill,
But how does the coffee taste???? :twisted: :twisted: :wink:

Bill,

When you say the tails are dried and now are in a coffee cup, how did you dry them? I guess one of my concerns is not so much getting an infestation as much as getting rid of any bugs that might be in the tails as they were shipped. These feathers are 2-3 days old and I'm just assuming there are bugs in the tails. I got a flea collar today and put the whole thing in with the feathers. I'm hoping that will kill anything in there. After a couple of weeks I'll take the collar out and put in some cedar/moth balls. If I have to borax each quill that will be fine with me ... I'll just have to set aside half a day to do it, which I'm willing to do if that's what needs to be done. Thanks for all the responses thus far.

Greg,
After they dry, I put feathers ans furs into the deep freezer. After a few days I thaw them out. After a few days at room temp I freeze them again. Then they are ready for storage in my fly tying area in containers that have a piece of "no-pest strip" in the back. The freeze will cill any live bugs, and the freeze-thaw-freeze again will give a good shot at destroying any eggs that might be there to hatch.

Regards,
Keith

freeze em