| Shadow Rose Farms and Taxidermy Anna Dominguez 3325 O'Hara Ave. Brentwood, California 94513 (925) 457-5448 Please feel free to contact me anytime with questions or comments. |
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| Shadow Rose Taxidermy |
| HOW TO PREPARE YOUR ANIMAL FOR TAXIDERMY SERVICES Shoulder Mounts: For deer, bear, sheep, anything you plan to have a shoulder mount. When field dressing your animal, PLEASE DO NOT CUT THE BRISKET This means, when gutting, do not cut past the front legs. A cut up the exposed chest of any mount results in possible visible stitching to close up the cut. Believe it or not, it is NOT nessesary to cut the animal up to its neck to get the guts out... so please don't do it! Next, cut the skin around the body BEHIND THE FRONT LEGS. Skin the animal up to the back of the head or as far as you can , cut the head off and leave the head intact. Cutting the skin around the neck or in front of the front legs will make the cape too short, and I will CHARGE EXTRA to modify a mannikin to fit your short cut cape, and it will not have the look that shoulder mounts are intended to have. Some taxidermists will charge you a "caping fee" for leaving the head in the skin, I wont. In fact, I prefer the head left in so I can properly skin the head without damaging the nose, lips, eyes, etc. Just let me do the work.... THINGS NOT TO DO: Cut the chest or "brisket" Cut up the back of the skin all the way up to the back of the head... just "tube" it from behind the shoulders to the head Cut the skin around the neck or in front of the shoulders Get the skin wet on the hair/fur side... wet hair wrapped up in a plastic bag is the recipe for rotting! If you must wet it, let it hang to drip dry for up to 2 hours then freeze it Rugs: Make your normal belly incision to dress the animal. If you think you got the skills, do not cut up the legs, just skin them out up to the elbow/hock joints and cut off the lower part of the legs, leaving in the paws/hooves/feet.... I WILL REMOVE THEM. If you are determined to get every last bit of meat off the legs, the make a CLEAN cut straight across from leg to leg, but leave the feet in! Try to make as short of a cut down the leg as possible, meaning cut only up to the elbow if possible. This also applies to lifesize and 1/2 lifesize mounts. After this, follow the same skinning proceedure as mentioned above for shoulder mounts. After removing the skin/head..... FREEZE IT. If possible, freeze the whole thing solid. I love getting animal shaped ice blocks... this assures the skin did not heat up to cause bacteria damage (rotting) and kills all those lovely fleas and ticks. If you cannot freeze it.... DO NOT GET THE SKIN WET Wrap it up tight in plastic bags, put in an ice chest or plastic tub and place ice around the whole thing. Keep it dry and cold and get it to me as soon as possible. |