Doesn't sound to hard. Now I tried salting once before. I wanted to keep some turkey wings so I salted them.... With table salt. Nailed them to a sheet of plywood and set it in the sun. It just rotted and was pretty rancid! Is there a specific type of salt?
Its been a long time but I believe it was non-iodized salt. I doubt that matters much. The meat probably rotted where you couldn't get salt on it... sounds pretty bad.
I've been told powdered Borax works better for wings/feathers than salt. Haven't tried it myself though.