I dropped an axis hide off to a well known Houston taxidermist to be tanned. They originally quoted it would be done 4-6 months it has now been 8 months and no hide.

My question- is it typical for hides to take a bit longer than quoted? Is there a good chance it was lost or ruined? Am I being too impatient?

Taxidermists - how good is the chance that a hide can be lost or damaged somewhere in the process?

I’ve called multiple times and gotten little to no regard from the outfit on the status.

There are a lot of situations that will cause a variance.

Taxi prob was late getting it to the tannery.
Depending on what tannery they used covid had some, if not all shut down fir a bit
Tanneries right now are slammed and very far behind
If the taxi is communicating I wouldn’t worry to much.
But yes they can get ruined. Lost not so much. But they can get ruined. And the honest answer is most of time they are bad before the taxi ever gets the animal.
You will say you took care of hide correctly. The taxi will say the same. And the tannery the same. So everyone left blaming the other. I would say most flat hides are taking abiut 10 months at the tannery.
Hope this helps

It absolutely did thanks for taking the time - I’ll hang back a while - was just curious at what point I really say to myself “it’s not coming back, time to pursue a refund”.