You need a lot of customers to make a good living at it. With that many customers you will need to hire other taxidermists, skinners, flashers, etc. A handful of people can do a little of everything but if one of your taxidermists is fleshing a cape then you will be losing money. If you want to give it a whirl then I would do it part time and take in only enough pieces that you know you can handle. You will put in many extra hours, sacrifice family and friend time. Be prepared for a lot of abandoned tanned hides, antler plaques, euro’s, and even shoulder mounts. Always, always get half down up front, no excuses. Never send anything to a tannery without at least having the money down to pay for the tanning and shipping. Find a really good school or mentor to learn from. Go to your state Taxidermy competitions and learn from others and the judges. Subscribe to Breakthrough magazine.
I have about 7 more mounts to complete them I’m done for good. I’m burned out from all the extra work and abandoned stuff. My commercial meat processing plant keeps me extremely busy. Busy enough that I even phased out wildgame processing last October. I think 30 years of processing all that dirty crap is enough! LOL