Should I be concerned

[tayhot]

I shot a big bear last year and took the cape in that same day to the taxidermist. He said it would take 10 months. Well, a year has gone by and I called him on Friday and he said it was still at the tannery. I called last month and he said the same thing but that it should be back within 2 weeks. Well I gave two extra weeks before I called just in case. He is a pretty reputable company. Should I be concerned? What would you do?

 

[FullCryHounds]

No tanner should take over a year to get something back. I use two different tanners and they are both 45 days or less turnaround. Have someone else call and ask him what tanner he uses (he probably won't tell you) Then call them direct and ask what their turnaround time is and then see if he even sent it in yet.

 

[4000fps]

If he is a large shop, chances are he doesn't send all his capes to the tannery at once. He probably sends them in batches. It makes business sense to do it that way. While he is waiting on the second batch to arrive, he can be mounting the first batch of capes, etc. No reason to pay $5k in tanning, just to have it sit there in a pile for 6 months while he plays catch up. I am just speculating...

 

[deerbedead]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-14-09 AT 09:58PM (MST)[p]I agree with 4000fps on this one. Also if one of my customers called my tannery and gave them the business asking them about their cape, I would be very unhappy.

Taxidermists send in hundreds of capes and the tannery will do them 15-20 at a time over a 3-7 month period. This way the taxidermist can pay the bill in small increments and will have room to store the capes. It also allows the tannery to keep all the taxidermists happy instead of just a few.

If you expected your mount to be done sooner, you should talk it over with your taxidermist and figure out when you need it, and how he can deliver it to you by that time.

Most shops can mount 1-3 animals per day, so if they take in 150 animals, someone is going to get their animal way sooner than others. Sometimes the difference is decided by who's cape is tanned first and shipped by the tannery.

Another tip I'll give you guys wanting your mounts quicker is to decide on your pose right when you drop off the deer, and leave the antlers with the taxi. I can't tell you how many times I pull capes out of the freezer to mount them and the guy hasn't decided which pose he wants, or he still has the antlers at his house admiring them.....So I put the cape back in the freezer and get another one out that I have the antlers on hand, and his pose is decided, and I mount it up.

The last tip is if you truly want a quick turnaround, pay the guy extra to rush the tanning. Most tanneries will rush a cape for an extra charge. Some have 30 day, or 60 day rush services. The tanner will charge an extra $100 or so, and the Taxi will charge an extra $??? to put you in front of the other customers. I have 30 day rush service, 60 day, and 90 day rush, but I charge the heck out of them because it takes a lot of extra attention, shipping, and planning to pull it off. Some guys rush every animal they bring in. They still get the quality, but they don't take the chance of being the last cape out of the tannery if they go the standard route.

I have an attorney from Vegas that brings me a lot of animals, and he has rushed them all except the last one which is a buffalo hide. He decided it was too much to pay for rush service on the tanning. Well, by luck his hide is one of the last 8 or 10 pieces of tanning I have left at the tannery. He's called me every month for 6 months and all I can tell him is it's still not back from the tannery. He has been very patient, but I'll guarantee he will never go the cheap route again. He's just not going to wait. I get a kick out of it because it's eating him to have to be patient when he knows he could afford the extra couple hundred bucks.

Anyway, this is too long of a post, but I thought it might be interesting for some of you guys out there.

One more thing I just remembered. Right now I talk to a lot of taxi's that are being stiffed by customers right and left that won't or can't pay for their mounts. I have over $10,000 worth of completed mounts hanging in my shop that I can't collect the money owed. If you have the money to pay for your mount, you may want to call your taxi and let him know you have money and will come get the mount as soon as it's done. For me, that would put you at the top of the list in a hurry. It's tough to tell which guys can or will pay these days. Seems to be a lot of rubber checks and slow to pay guys with this rough economy.
On the other hand if you don't have the money or can't afford the mount right now, you should also give him a call and ask him to hold off a while. It will be better for you both. It sucks to spend the money for the materials and tanning, then take the days to mount the animal, then find out the guy can't pay. It puts you in a cash flow crunch, which will slow the whole process down for everyone. Cash speaks with much volume!

Ok, I'm done.

DBD

 

[tayhot]

just a note deerbeded... I have paid $600 up front. He didnt ask for this as a deposit, but I did it as a good jesture

 

[deerbedead]

Tayhot,
I understand that. I'm not saying you did anything wrong at all. I think my point is that most of us taxidermists that are truly artists, are very busy, with lots and lots of work. We take pride in a fine product that will stand the test of time, as well as the scrutiny of a trained eye. This type of work takes time to complete. Most taxidermists I know will tell you it will take a year to do your work. That way, we can go to work without a customer breathing down our necks. It sucks to work under constant pressure. This timeline gives us enough time to get all 100-200 mounts done before the customers start calling.
It really slows production when you start fielding a call every 20 minutes from a customer that is "just checking to see if you've had a chance to work on his mount yet" You get 10 calls like that every day and you just lost another day out of a week talking on the phone.

Back to the point. I think your animal is most likely safe and sound at the tannery, where ever that may be. I think my recommendation would be to give your taxi a little room and hang in there while he also waits for it to come back from the tannery. We spend all year hoping that the tannery will come through for us as well. If they take too long to send the capes back, we start to get calls, and then you know the rest.

If you have a quality taxidermist that produces great work, it will be well worth the extra month or two to let him work his magic so you can enjoy a mount that should last you a lifetime.

As far as the $600 deposit goes, that will cover the tanning bill on a bear, and the skinning, fleshing, salting, shipping to and from the tannery, plus the shop overhead. It will leave very little to purchase the mannikin and the rest of the supplies to complete the mount though, so you may want to consider taking him another few hundred when he tells you the hide is back from the tannery. That way he'll be able to order the mannikin and get to work on it. Some taxis are poor money managers and they can't scratch up the money to buy the mannikin, so they wait until they collect some money before they can afford the supplies. That's not always the case, but it happens. Sad part is that a lot of us are artists, but not accountants, bankers, or pawn brokers. Even though in this economic downturn, my shop is starting to look like a pawn shop with more and more mounts stacking up on the walls waiting for guys to scrape up the money to finish paying for them!

Take care,
DBD

 

[deerbedead]

Tayhot, I just reread your first post and I missed the part that you said it would take 10 months. I assumed he told you a year and that it had been 10 months. My bad.

That doesn't change my thoughts on the matter, and I've written plenty. Almost enough to start a book!

The real problem tends to be that some taxis will salt the hides and then they'll wait till the hunting seasons are over, then they'll send in the hides to the tannery. Sometimes they get busy and don't get it done till several months later. Then what happens is the tannery will start working on the hides, and depending on what end of the pile they start on, the first animals to come in may end up being on the bottom of the pile. This happened to me just last year.

I sent my hides in in November to the tannery, and somehow my archery deer and the elk from early Sept. ended up on the bottom of the pile at the tannery. I started getting shipments of hides in January, but no deer or elk. It was lions, bears, late season deer from Nov, and so on.
This wasn't a problem at first, but the tannery was swamped and ended up taking much longer than they had ever done before. By the time I got all the early season animals back, it was almost July. That got me a few calls from the archery guys and a few of the elk guys.

Bottom line is that I went to the tannery and had a visit with them about it. They said that I needed to put the hides in a box with a date on each one so they could tell which ones to do first. Problem solved. I just had to suffer through a long year hoping that the hides would come sooner.
Now I have found two more tanneries that do great work, and I send hides to all three tanneries. That way I get all the tanning done quicker and I don't have to worry about them being on the bottom of the pile because the pile isn't that deep at any one tannery. It speeds up the whole process for us all.

Ok, I"ll shut up. You probably didn't want to hear all this anyway.

Peace!

 

[tayhot]

Thanks for the replies. Just boils down to the fact that I am an impatient person

 

[BOHNTR]

LAST EDITED ON Jul-17-09 AT 06:51PM (MST)[p]Good info with a different perspective Travis.......thanks for taking the time to explain it. I kind of feel bad for calling you a few years back just to shoot the bull!

BOHNTR )))---------->

 

[petedawg08]

tayhot, I had my black bear stolen from a taxidermist as posted on this forum a month ago. My regret was I didn't stop by after a couple of months and check up and say hi. I dont believe in paying up front for anything like that because I have had other buddies get stifed from taxidermist that paid up front the whole amount and they just leave town never to been seen again. I would show up personally at the shop and talk and communicate with the guy. Travis is an amazing taxidermist and he is a rare one to be so open and do quality work with integrity. Your bear will be fine because its a big shop and they want your business. I talked with a tanner the other day and to tan a bear he said it only cost between 200-300 dollars. So your $600 was plenty to give him in my opinion.

 

[stalker]

>No tanner should take over a
>year to get something back.
>I use two different tanners
>and they are both 45
>days or less turnaround. Have
>someone else call and ask
>him what tanner he uses
>(he probably won't tell you)
>Then call them direct and
>ask what their turnaround time
>is and then see if
>he even sent it in
>yet.

I very much doubt that calling the tannery yourself is going to get you anywhere. The tannery is not going to know which bear is yours and I doubt they will give you any info other than to call your Taxidermist. Also lead times at tanneries change as their work load increases so what the lead time is now has nothing to do with when your hide was received.
Some tanneries do take up to a year.

Call your taxidermist and politely let him know how long it has been and ask if he would call the tannery and ask for an update.
Be very professional about the whole deal and don't let your emotions take over and make things worse than they already are.

As for $600 deposit most reputable taxis require 50% up front and the ones that don't would make me very nervous.

 

[NVMULEDEER1]

Taxidermist our just like any other business, there are good ones and bad ones. I have weeded through 4 taxidermist's before I found one that did excellent work and is dependable. He's in Texas and I'm in Nevada and I don't mind paying the shipping one bit because I know what I'm getting. 20 plus animals and he's still my taxidermist.

In 2000 I used a reputable taxidermist in Reno for my desert sheep. Paid half down and he said it would be done in 8 months because he would like to take it to a show before he gave it to me and I said that was fine. Checked with him a minimum of once a month. 21 months later he finished the head.

So what I'm trying to say is even the most reputable taxidermist are not always the best. So when I finally did find a good one he's mine for life!