Its going to be another busy week in the shop!  I will only be mounting 1 animal this week, a drake pintail for Robert H.  The rest of my time will be spent preparing 3 black ducks for Jim C., 2 green wing teal for Dillon E., 3 teal for Michael F., a blue-phase snow goose for Cliff P., a mallard for Robert H., 2 lesser scaup for Michael F. and a hooded merganser for Stewart G.  As if that wasn’t enough, I will also be prepping 2 grey foxes, 1 for Teresa S. and 1 for Marged H., as well tanning a deer for Eric B. and Joe W.  Maybe I will even find time to sleep and eat!

Here are the fruits of my labor for the past 2 days.  Yesterday, I mounted a beautiful drake pintail for S. Hilgoe in a flushing pose.  Today’s project was a huge drake American black duck for J. Dalton.  This bird was also mounted in a flushing pose.  This weekend I will be mixing business with pleasure by delivering a snow goose to S. Mercer and duck hunting in Southport, NC.  Hopefully, I will get some good looking birds to mount for competitions this year!

Well, today was another 2 duck day.  The redhead is for M. Fuller and the green wing teal is for R. Hilgoe.  After a couple weeks of drying, their trophies will be ready!

Today I finished the hen for the pair of widgeon that I started yesterday.  Try to look past all of the pins and wires!  After it dries, I am going to add some cattails to the habitat to liven it up a little bit.  Tomorrow I am planning to mount a drake redhead for M. Fuller and a drake green wing teal for R. Hilgoe.

Today was very productive!  I got 2 ducks mounted, a drake American widgeon and drake canvas back.  The widgeon is 1 of a pair that will be mounted on the same piece of wood for J. Dalton.  The hen will be mounted down below the drake in a landing pose.  She is scheduled for first thing in the morning.  I will post pictures of the pair when the hen is mounted.

I have to say the canvas back was one of the toughest birds I’ve mounted in quite a while because it was freezer burned.  It was a real struggle to get the feather tracts to stay in the correct places.  I finally got it in good looking shape.  We will see what it looks like when its dried!  Let me take this time to stress that if you plan on mounting any animal, especially a bird, you must store it properly before taking it to the taxidermist.  Putting it in a grocery bag and then sticking it in the freezer will not protect the animal in any way.  It may as well be just laying in the freezer unprotected.  To store a bird, or any animal for that matter, place it in a trash bag and wrap it up while removing as much air as possible, but being careful not to damage the feathers.  Then place the wrapped bird inside another trash bag and seal the bag with masking tape.  When stored in this manner, a bird can remain frozen for up to a year with no damage or freezer burn!

Things were very productive and a little stressful in the shop this week.  On the productive side, after many long hours, I have 13 ducks that are ready to mount!  On the stressful side, I went to take some ducks out of my large freezer Wednesday evening and I noticed that everything was starting to thaw.  So that evening I scoured Craigslist to no avail.  Thursday morning, I decided to bite the bullet and go to Lowes and buy a new 20 cubic foot chest freezer.  Low and behold, they do not stock anything over 15 cubic feet.  That lead to me driving all over Southern Pines and Aberdeen stopping at every appliance center I could find, but none of them had a freezer big enough.  Well, to solve the problem I ended up buying 2 freezers!  Oh well, at least I noticed the freezer was out before I lost anything.  Now I will have a little peace of mind with 2 brand new freezers with extended warranties!  Well, back to business.  This week will be all duck mounts.  I will post pictures as I get them mounted, so check back throughout the week.

Here is E. Ellis’ beautiful grey fox.  All that is left to do after it dries is to finish the detail work and spruce up the habitat.  More pictures will be posted when its complete.

Here is the snow goose that I mounted today for S. Mercer.  After it dries for a couple weeks, I will do the finishing work on it.  I will post more pictures when it is completed!

Happy New Year!  Now that the holidays are over, the taxidermy shop is running at full speed.  This week I will be mounting a snow goose for S. Mercer and beginning work on a pair of widgeon for J. Dalton.  Monday the 7th, I will be mounting a grey fox for E. Ellis and the rest of the week will be spent doing the prep work for 10 ducks!  These ducks include a black duck for J. Dalton, 2 teal and a redhead for M. Fuller, a pintail for S. Hilgoe, a pintail and teal for R. Hilgoe and 3 black ducks for J. Cushing.  I will try to post some pictures after I get a few things mounted so check back often to see how things are going!