[pushtmpersy]

Have any of you ever had a taxidermist lose your mount? With the cost of a hunt; and especially a limited tag, I would hate to have a taxidermist offer only my deposit back or something pathetic like that if he lost the mount.

I mean, in an extreme case, a mount could be worth only $500.00 to $1500.00 depending on the work done; but the license and hunt could have been $20,000.00 or more.

Anyone have a taxidermist lose your mount?


all-taxidermy.com

My taxidermist finally called after 9 months with my 170" whitetail..wow was I excited to see the results...but the excitement soon diminished to shock when he told me my antlers were missing. After the blood returned to my head I pressed for a reason why or how they were missing. The reasons were plausible but ultimately irrelevant. The taxidermist is a decent guy with a goodreputation. My question to the community here: What should I do, expect or demand from this taxidermist? Any experiences or insights onthis horrific situation are greatly appreciated.

 

[Critter]

Your question has been answered at the beginning of this post.

Your legal recourse should be spelled out on your receipt from when you dropped the head off

Sent from my SM-A426U using Tapatalk

 

[bowgy]

Ha I started reading through this and realized the op was 12 years old but with a current issue new post.

My first thought is that it is a business and should have insurance, as putting a value that would vary between individuals, if the guy doesn't give you recourse the only other option is court. Possibly cost more than it is worth to fight in case you lose unless it is just small claims court.

 

[BIG]

Most taxidermists will give you the antlers to keep after caping until its ready to be mounted.

If a guy was worried and maybe if I were a taxidermist you could utilize that system the Trapperman Studio uses for replicas. You just take a bunch of pictures with the refence point printouts. Best case is you don't have to use them, worst case he can make an exact replica and you have to spend a few $. I think that would be a great insurance program and wouldnt be hard to keep pics on file.

 

[Bux n Dux]

My taxidermist finally called after 9 months with my 170" whitetail..wow was I excited to see the results...but the excitement soon diminished to shock when he told me my antlers were missing. After the blood returned to my head I pressed for a reason why or how they were missing. The reasons were plausible but ultimately irrelevant. The taxidermist is a decent guy with a goodreputation. My question to the community here: What should I do, expect or demand from this taxidermist? Any experiences or insights onthis horrific situation are greatly appreciated.

Let’s start by saying who the taxidermist!

 

[elkfromabove]

I've only had two mounts done by taxidermists and the second one did a great job on my elk, even though the cape was a little ripe by the time I finally got it off the mountain the day after I killed it (Archery hunt mid. Sep.). But, the first one was another story. Though it wasn't entirely his fault, he sent the pronghorn cape to his tanner and the tanner forgot to set the timer on his vat and he boiled it along with several deer and elk capes. So, my taxi still had the horns and the skull or skull plate and he promised to find a cape to replace the one that was damaged. Well, needless to say, a year later I finally had to take one over to him. As luck would have it, my daughter had just killed a nice one with her rifle and she didn't want a mount, so the taxidermist put my pronghorn's horns on my daughter's pronghorn's cape and we ended up with a mount that both of us could enjoy. However, there was no replacement cape, no refund and not much of an apology! But he didn't and won't get any more business from me or anyone else I know!

 

[Springville Shooter]

Luckily, I have never had a bad experience with a taxidermist. One thing that surprises me is the number of people that leave the horns/antlers from day one when they drop off the cape. I usually always take mine with me and bring them back when the taxidermist gets the tanning done and is ready to mount. Then, they have the antlers for a couple weeks while they finish up the work. Also not sure why more taxidermists don't suggest this as it would help them with storage and responsibility. I think that most would agree that losing a cape is much less of a tragedy than losing the horns/antlers. Plus, I enjoy having the antlers around for the year or so that it takes to get a mount done. I usually keep them on my work bench and check them out a thousand times before they become part of a mount, put up on the wall, and you never touch them again.-------SS

 

[Critter]

Quite often it would be a huge inconvenience to take the antlers/horns home with you. Quite often if the taxidermist is busy he'll just place the whole head into a freezer and then when he has time he'll skin out the cape and cut the antlers/horns off of the skull.

Now if you live close to that taxidermist it may not be a problem, but if you need to travel a ways then it may be a problem. When I shot my B&C coues deer I dropped the head off at a taxidermist down in Tucson, Arizona 800 miles away. The person who does the capeing was out on a hunt of his own and wouldn't be back for another week.

One way to get around all this is to learn how to cape your own animal. You can then just drop off the cape and take the skull and antlers/horns home with you. I have been thinking about doing it this way for 20 years but it always seams like I don't have the time to do it myself when I drop a head off.

 

[SaltyWalty]

I don’t have much knowledge in this area, but if I lost anything (head, meat, cape) on a deer I would be pissed, I just don’t know what to do about it. On my 2022 buck I did the euro (it sucks but I’m proud of it) and we paid the butcher $40 for the deers cape. We didn’t get it back, and on top of that the butcher was very terrible at communicating about getting his customers the most meat. He also didn’t tell us that he would turn about half the meat into stew meat, until he gave it to us. No steaks were lost, but we got no burgers and as a first time deer shooter I was pissed that he couldn’t communicate the simple things that I would need to know and he would only know.

 

[Critter]

One thing with butchers, you should be the one telling them what you want. Steaks, chops, burger, jerky, or whatever. Don't let them tell you what they are going to give you. Also get a receipt on how many pounds you took to them, hanging weight bones in, or meat without bones. It will make a difference in price.