So I have A question and I know You guys will know the answer. If you could have your deer taxidermy back in 6 weeks guaranteed, do you think people would be willing to pay the price? Also for Top notch work.

Would depend on the price and if top notch work?

I would think that would be a little hard to guarantee.

What's the hurry? You'll have it forever.

Me too

I don't mind waiting if I know it's going to be higher quality work. Same goes for price.

I have mounts that were done cheap or they cut corners. Turnaround time on those mounts was shorter than a the high end price soft tanned mounts I have now. Every single one of those early mounts show that today. If you walked in my house and looked at the mounts I would not have to tell you which mounts were not soft tanned.

With tannery wait times over two months it should be….

No taxidermist that does not have his own tannery can offer a deal like that. I'd pass. Rush jobs are rarely "top notch" work.

The only way I see you could offer guaranteed turnaround is to limit the number of animals taken in. That means you have to raise the prices to compensate for the lower volume. Then deal with the issues with tanning raised above. Not saying it’s impossible, but I don’t see a long-term viability.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^THIS^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


Exactly right

It is taking my cousin about 6-10 weeks to get a cape back from the tannery.

However, I supposed if a taxidermist charges a large enough premium to do the fast turnaround he can in turn do the same with his tannery and pay them more to turn his capes around quicker as well.
The bottom line is now the price of a top notch shoulder mount on a WT is at $800+ at the best taxidermists............I am not too much of a penny pincher but I believe I'll just go ahead and wait for mine to get back before paying another increase. lol

If there is no change to the process, but only a decrease in queue time, yes. But how can you be sure that is the only change? It's not the same business at all, but we do machining for a variety of industries to synthetic graphite. Lead times are sometimes 12 weeks, and 90% of that is queue time. When offered an expedite fee for a decreased lead time, we pass knowing other customers will now have a lead time longer than quoted. (There are times that some industries go to the front of the line and we get it out in a week or less; everybody wants to know why we can't get everything out that quick, ridiculous question)

Can you ask him if he is getting the tanning expedited at the current source? I had a cat tanned a year ago. I dropped it off at the commercial tannery and quickly realized why taxidermy took so long. The delivery was months, and most of that was queue time.

Agree 100%. 6 weeks? No way I'd take that deal.

First question I ask a taxidermist is where do you get your hides tanned. If they do it themselves, I'm walking away. It is impossible to get the same results by doing it yourself compared to a commercial tannery. As mentioned before, this is at least a 2 month process. Usually longer. I want my mounts to look good 50 years from now, so waiting for top quality is a no brainer. Another red flag is if somebody can get a mount out really fast, they are not very busy. A good taxidermist is very rare, and always super busy.