Taking Care of Velvet Question?

[LuckyShot]

Question for you MMRs. How do you take care of velvet for the long term? I have some velvet muley heads and, over time, it looks like the velvet is going bad. All of my heads were properly treated/injected. A friend of mine who is a taxidermist told me years ago that moths will eat the velvet. He suggested that I spray the horns/velvet with pesticide every year to combat this from happening. I cant say that I am convinced that this works. Do any of you have any suggestions in helping protect velvet from moths, etc.?

 

[monarchtaxidermy]

The best way to preserve the velvet is to keep it clean and the bugs out of the velvet. If you simply clean the velvet with a damp rag with some windex or a little dish soap and water and scrub them lightly. Keep dust off velvet because over time it is actually the dust particles that will break down the velvet. If they need a good cleaning take a toothbrush and some soapy water and scrub out all of the dust and fluff aback up with a blow dryer. If the velvet is falling out then chances are it was not preserved or dried right in the first place. I wouldn't spray any chemicals on the velvet!
hope this helps. If you live in salt lake bring them over and I will help you touch them up. Good Luck
Monarch

 

[4000fps]

The first thing that leads to bad velvet is poor handling. I see so many people posing in pics with their velvet bucks, smashing the velvet down with their hands.

Second, freeze-drying really is superior to injecting. Live velvet is fluffy, not matted down. I have handled a lot of velvet racks that were injected, yet have a noticable odor.