Alsatian

I recently paid $175 for a wooden crate to ship a pronghorn head from the taxidermist from Gillette, Wyoming to my home north of Dallas, Texas. The crate was constructed of about 8 4' x 1"x4" boards and 10 2' x 1"x4" boards. The wood looked like yellow pine. The boards were secured to each other with some sort of staples from a staple gun. The alignment of things was not perfect, suggesting the crate was rapidly put together, but adequate to the purpose. The crate was enclosed with cardboard, cardboard from a clothes dryer. If I were to make one of these -- and I'm not a carpenter or particularly skilled with tools -- I'm guessing the wood might cost about $20 and that I could assemble the crate in about 15 minutes. Particularly, I think with the experience of building about 20 of these crates per year for several years, I would get pretty quick at assembling these crates. The shipping costs were separate from the $175 and cost $50, not a surprise considering both the weight and the volume of the crate loaded with the head.

The question is . . . was $175 too much to be asked to pay for this crate? What do you all pay for similar crates to have heads shipped to you? I am a novice consumer of the taxidermist's art. Going forwards I may have additional heads mounted, and in the future I would like to be a more informed and knowledgable consumer before having my next head mounted.

I posted this querry in the "Taxidermy" topic, but the responses were not helpful. I get the feeling most of the folks in that topic are taxidermists. A typical reply was "if you negotiated this point up front, and you agreed to this price up front, what is the problem?" Well, that doesn't address my question. Given the crate I received, there is some price at which I would have overpaid -- be it $175, be it $500, be it $10,000 for a crate. I would like to get some idea of what price I ought to pay in the future for the packaging of a head mount.

dvdegeorge

Seems excessive to me!To avoid this problem in the future,bring your cape home with you and have your local taxidermist do the job!I would never have a strange taxidermist do my work,besides why not give your local taxidermist who does all your work the $.I have brought back capes from whitetails in Saskatchewan,Antelope in Wy, Elk from Co,Caribou from Quebec without a problem!

RandyA

I think it sounds expensive. It would have been easier for me to swallow had he charged you $50 for the crate and $150 for shipping. I had animals shipped from Africa and the cost of the crate( a real crate) was only $500. For 7 animals.

I have used 4 different taxidermists in my life and only one was open, up front with me, honest, and trustworthy. I still use him, after 15 years, and would not even consider another. To get burned 3 out of 4 times you learn not to trust anyone.

I lump taxidermists with lawyers and realtors!

Alsatian

dvdegeorge:

I don't have a taxidermist which I have established a relationship with. This pronghorn head was my first mount of any kind. Also, I didn't think the shipping costs would be prohibitive.

I thought it would be the best course to take the whole animal to the taxidermist and have him cape the animal for me. In my case, the taxidermist was about a 15 minute drive from the hunting ground where I hunted. I have never caped an animal. How much skinning do you have to do? Do you leave the skin on the head and just take the skin off the shoulders and neck or do you have to fully remove the skin from the eye juncture, the muzzle, the lips, take the cartiledge out of the ears, turn the ears inside out. That regime sounds like something I would be very likely to screw up the first time, maybe the first two times, maybe the first five times I did this. In the specific case of our hunt, my son's buck was taken on our first day. The second day I took my pronghorn. It is a two day drive home. It would have been fully four days from taking the pronghorn to getting to the taxidermist. What do you do to the cape in the meantime to keep it from spoiling? Just salt the heck out of it?

kshunter

Alsatian, to answer some of your questions first of all, $175 for a crate is a heck of a markup. Cost should have been discussed up front. I'm sure if he did that to many customers, he'd have a lot of angry customers complaining about that.

Here is probably a better way to save some money while on far-away hunting trips. 1st learn how to correct take the cape of the skull(green-skin it). It sounds easy, but make sure you know what you're doing, because there are plenty of places around the eyes, tear ducts, lips, nose, etc, where it's easy to mess up. Plus there a few places where extra skin is needed for the mounting process for tucking. If you see a person do it once, it's not too bad. Just make sure you read up on it.

Once you have the skin of the deer, freeze it and send it next day air back to your wife or taxidermist, near your hometown. I would not recommend turning the ears, lips, nose, or doing any additional detailed fleshing, because it is a complicated task that does require experience and detailed knowledge on what to do. Plus, as a taxidermist myself, most taxidermist would rather do the prepping for the cape themselves to tailor it the way they want.

Shipping the cape back to your hometown will take an extra hour out of your hunting trip, but will save you a lot of money in the long run, especially in your case, where the crate costs $175 and shipping $50. Otherwise you've got one expensive goat. Good luck

kshunter

After re-reading your last posts, another option as you stated is to take it to the taxidermist, have him skin, flesh, turn, and salt for you. Usually a taxidermist will charge $20-$50 for this. But this way you will have a dried, salted skin that you can give to your taxidermist of choice near you, once you get back from hunting, and you won't have to ship anything.

RandyA

Practice on several doe's the next time you take one. The task of skinning the head isn't that complicated. Then roll the cape in newspaper and keep it cool, on ice or in a fridge. I have shipped skinned capes, over night, rolled in paper and frozen. Never had a problem. I have also just caped to the base of the antlers cut the antlers off, then stuck the head in an ice chest. Until I learned how to completely cape the entire head. Now that I cape them I either flesh and salt or roll them up and keep the cape cool for the trip home. So far I haven't lost a cape.

dvdegeorge

Some of the time I will cape it myself,other times as kshunter has suggested have a taxidermist cape and either freeze soild or salt the cape.I paid $25 to have my antelope caped for me.Do some research now and find a good reputable taxidermist in your area before you need him.That way you can see his work and are not just making a snap desition.Also bear in mind that cheaper is not always the way to go.See his work and study it,talk to some of his customers to see if he is good to work with and does as he promises when he promises.I got lucky and have a taxidermist that does museum quality work at a reasonable price,and in a timely fashion,Thats like hitting the triffecta

Elkshed

I think around 40-50 dollars is about average.Sounds like the Taxi you went to charges about $464.16 per hour.If it took 20 min to put crate together.
I know the wood at Lowes, for 4'x1"x4" is $1.56 ea. So the wood would cost $20.28 and 154.72 x 3 = $464.16/Hr.
It is best to find out all of the charges and any hidden charges in advance and have them included on your bill of sale so there isn't any confusion.
Also it is good to do your research on taxidermists just like you do on a guide so you don't end up with a hacksidermist.
Elkshed

Fangen

$175 isnt too high at all. I ship over 300 wild boar mounts all acrss the country and the average shipping costs runs me $35-$55. And that is packaging them in a well packed, doube corrugated box and shipping them via UPS.

Shipping a antelope in a wooden crate...which had to go Truck/freight lines, adding in the labor and time to buy,build, and coordinate a pickup time with a freight company for the crate..I would say $175 is about right.

I shipped a Buffalo shoulder mount from Tennessee to New York. After materials and feight expenses the owner of the mount paid just over $425 for shipping..And I didnt charge any labor and only asked for reimbursement of the materials to construct the crate.