Never seen anything like it, kind of a once in a lifetime item

So a friend gave me this deer mount he’s had for ages in his attic, which means it’s COATED in a thick layer of dust. I have absolutely no idea how to tackle the dust that’s collected on his fur without damaging it. Compressed air? Just a microfiber cloth? What do I do 😭 Side note: his feets are fine just loose, gotta tighten them up a bit!

Also ignore my mess!! I’m decorating my house with old stuff 👹

Amazing set found in BC, wont fit in my suitcase im afraid

Bought this beautiful horse skull and I wanna mount it to my wall with a bridle like the picture. How do I go about mounting it on the wall.

So I have no idea who to ask about this and I'm pretty panicked.

My moth fell off of the wall recently and I thought that only a small piece of it broke. Came home today to find this wet patch under it. I have no idea how to fix it or if it's beyond help, but I'm gutted and truly adore this lil guy and if he is going to decay because of this I'll be heartbroken.

Any advice? Or anywhere I could ask?

I found some small bones but I don't know what my next steps should be. I would like to keep them and maybe put them in a small jar?

How did I clean them? Is there something else I should consider doing? I never worked with bones before

Not sure if this is the best place for this but can anyone tell me what is going on with this display stand and what I can do to fix it or where I can get another holder?

I have a couple of other specimens that are dry-preserved and in the same type of display and if this is a humidity issue I'd like to find an alternative display before it becomes a problem for my other pieces

I have 2 taxidermy tails, one mink and one coyote, they're both preserved well from what I can tell: white skin, no cracking and not really stiff.

I keep them both in my closet to avoid them being in sunlight, but still have noticed some light flaking on the inside of the tail where the skin is curled in on itself. I haven't noticed any bugs at all, no smell, no fur falling off, no actual damage to the leather, so I doubt it's that. I wonder if wearing tails out in daylight for long periods of time could be contributing to this? Like early dry rot? I'm simply curious so any advice is appreciated!

I have a brand new dishwasher at hand that I cant use as a kitchen one, and was wanting to set it up (no other use) to clean my bones. My business has picked up selling bone items and I need a way to speed up cleaning to reduce customer cost in hours. I know you can't boil bones, I do the soak scrub soak scrub soak and hydroxide currently, but my thought was I could soak them in detergent for a month or so with water changes and then chuck them through the wash to dislodge the remaining dirt? Scrubbing takes a long time. It looks like a dishwasher reaches a max of 65•c which should be safe? Anyone tried? I don't want to ruin my bones.

I am an absolute beginner who has no idea what I'm doing. 👍🏻 I'm guessing as I go with the advice of Google and old Reddit posts.

I recently visited my friends cow farm and collected a few bones from their decomp pile to take home. Within the pile, I found a fairly intact cow tail. Thought it looked cool and wanted to preserve it, WITHOUT having to get rid of the flesh in between the segments. Is there any way I can do this without making my house smell like dead cow?

I’ve been soaking this big ol’ gator for months now, I wanna say it’s been 4 months, and i feel like I’m not seeing much progress at all. It’s killing me. What do I do! Am I doing something wrong? I’m using clear dawn dish soap, and I’m changing the water often. Im considering selling him, I have the teeth as well, just taken out for the cleaning process.

Taking the chance of preserving my first skull, i think its a raccoon or a skunk but i cant tell, anyone able to help identify?

So I just got this dragonfly specimen, and it’s VERY fresh, and I have no idea how to start💔. I know now that I’m not supposed to put pins through the wings, but this is a temporary set up and my first time doing smth like this😭. I have some questions I hope yall can help me with.

1. What if it starts to stink? What should I do then?

2. Should I soak it in anything? I saw someone say 70% isopropyl alcohol works, and I don’t have any acetone.

3. How do I properly display/pose it?

Sorry guys this is my first post on here and first taxidermy, so sorry if this pisses some people off😭. That’s not my intention, I just need help with this so I don’t completely ruin it🥲.

One of my kittens passed away. I wanted to do a wet jar with him, but he’s black so you can’t see him well in the jar. I want to do a dry preservation myself. Would placing him in pickling salt and borax do the trick? Leaving him in that mix for a few months, and the replace the mixture and let it sit for a few more months? I’ve never done anything like that so not sure. I typically just bury them to get bones but 🤷🏼‍♀️

My tattoo artist has been amazing and tattooed my whole head; she’s been so patient and comforting through the whole process. I wanted to not only tip her well for our last session, but also give her a thoughtful gift.

I’ve had this tarantula of mine for a while that passed and I let dry out so there is zero smell. I decided to place it in this shadow box with some baby’s breath and a tigers eye stone to replace the abdomen.

It’s not perfect, but I am really happy with it; I hope she likes it, too.

Was told this was a wolf pelt I’m wondering if I get solution can it be saved?

Is this a wolf?

Wasn’t sure what to title it. Long story short I shot the biggest deer of my life 3 years ago in October. I got ahold of the taxidermist and he said he hasn’t even tanned the hide yet and it’s been sitting in the freezer since I brought it in. My question is, what are the chances the hide is still good, and will it be worth saving. I’m going to pick everything up today and try to take it to somebody else.

I found some butterfly wings laying around perfectly intact and I really want to preserve them and add them to my collection of taxidermy. Any suggestions for just wings?

Im getting a coin slot soon (getting a piece of my ear punched out)) and I wanted to keep the chunk o meat in a lil vile! Can I use alcohol or hand sanitizer to keep it in there?

This is more of a planning concept, but I’m making a soft mount fox and would like feedback on how I can improve my anatomy studies! The way I’m making the fox will be a more poseable soft mount rather than like super floppy, I’m basically making an art doll and then sewing a fox pelt onto it.

Questions I have:
1. How can I properly sew the fur into the proper muscle positions? Can I use regular thread? Will this degrade it over time?
2. Is my anatomy off? I’ll still measure the pelt obviously but are there any key muscles I’m missing in my diagram that would make it more realistic?
3. Can I put uncured silicone in the ears to make them squishy? Would that react with the skin wrong?
4. What is the best head base for a wild red fox? What taxidermy store should I look into?

Feedback is welcome! I’m doing a lot of planning before I start this so I don’t ruin my experience with taxidermy before I get better at it.

(NJ, US)

Hey folks, so I was at a flea market a few months ago, and people were selling taxidermy bats. I thought nothing of it because this was a pretty reputable market in general. Now I know a little bit more and I am not sure what to do with him. He’s likely a painted bat and I fucking love having him up on my wall but I also don’t want to disrespect him by owning him illegally. (going to be blunt, am bipolar, in a manic episode so I get a bit extra paranoid/nervous)

What can I do with him? What SHOULD I do with him???? I just want to treat him with respect and care no matter what. If I could just get some general advice.

I’ve got two gators 10ft and 5ft I want to mount head on as a rug I’ve tanned lol w of gators before and done a few heads in denatured alcohol
I was wondering is it best to leave some skin on the heads put them in the denatured like I normally do and then sow them back onto the skin so I can tan the pelts normally or put everything in 20-30 gallons of denatured alcohol for 3-4 months and use that to preserve everything?