I'm a taxidermist . Full time . If you're asking how much a taxidermist makes ,it's very much dependent on the economy. I live in rural North central pa . Where I live you either work for the hospital,work for the dcnr or the gas companies. If you want a decent job . Other than that your gonna work at sheetz . It's a tough area. When I traveled the country and worked shop to shop to shop many years ago. With no kids or wife . I thought I did great at 45k. Which is nothing.
Economy is shitty lately . Up here people don't bass fish,they rattlesnake hunt. I usually take in a dozen and this year I took in two . I can't tell you how much I make yearly because there's always wildcards. I will say I do this for the love of the game. I likely won't ever afford to retire . I'm ok with that . I ABSOLUTELY LOVE my job. I love the work I do I love the customers I love the trust that put into me to do the work that I do . I get free range to do things how I see fit. I love to do the best quality work there is.
Not to call the original poster a "redneck " but I'm just saying this statement in general . Every person who comes to my shop and asks me to teach them . It's just a guy that's done a skull or skinned out a deer thinks they can do taxidermy.
Taxidermy is a multitude of many trades and jobs. Carpenter,chemist ,book keeper, researcher, painter mechanic,salesman, advertising , among others. It's not something your gonna hang a shingle up watch a video and do. It takes years and years to build up . Even to get to part time.
You have to understand what's going on.
What am I trying to do here ?
Mount up a life-size bear ,ok now ,I need to know how to skin,flesh split,turn , salt ,resalt. Either send to the tannery and have them mess up a once in a lifetime skin or do it yourself and baby sit it and really be on the ball. Now order a manikin,get it to right pose,get it anatomically correct,get it mounted sewn up and then skin taxi'd and dried nicely no shrinkage no pulling or issues. Now finish work. Epoxy, painting , habitat and Base work. You cant just throw a bear on a rock and call it a day. You got a make it look like he's standing there and he's fitting the rock not the rock fitting the bear .
I do absolutely everything myself. I've made the mistake of trusting the tannery and trusting supply companies with things I shouldn't have in retrospect. And everything ended ok ,it was just a lot of stress.
I like total control over all aspects of the process. When something gets brought to me . It's me doing all of it. You have to research and understand every aspect of the field and job to do it well. You can't just be good at mounting . You have to be good at skin prep, modifications,habitat , repairs , skinning,being efficient. Etc etc.
Which brings up another thing. No hate or shade to other shops. But the guys making money in taxidermy either charge alot and were well off to begin with. Such as parents were well to do and didn't start off life in huge debts . Or they own a big shop with many employees that get paid nothing.
Just about all the big shops I know about . It's factory work. They pay a young guy straight out of high school skinning fleshing splitting turning salting out your grizzly bear or African lion etc. 12 bucks and hour or less. And say to him one day you'll be a taxidermist in the shop. And then he has no prior experience working on people's once in a lifetime items. If you don't believe me ,put in a job application to a large shop and then see what they put on the table in front of you. Then they'll have a another guy just prep forms to mount on ,and if they need modification they'll have another guy do that for 15 bucks an hour . Then another guy will mount it up for 17 bucks an hour. Then another guy will set the face for 18 bucks an hour . Then a finish work person at 15 bucks and hour and then a habitat guy at 14 bucks and hour. Now this isn't every shop . But a lot of them yes. It's an assembly line. It's efficient but there might of only been one actual Taxidermist touch and work on one aspect of the mount. That's how they make money to run ads on social media and go to the large expos and shows. Meanwhile let's say the factory taxidermy shop has 200 bucks in labor to mount that deer head Because they did the whole process very cheaply and broke it down . Me personally all of it is my labor in my shop. It would be 600 or more in labor . Because I have to make at minimum 25 bucks an hour .
For taxidermy it's like the matrix movie. Once you see how it's done and what goes on and what's right and wrong you can't close your eyes. Especially if you get fat into it and get good at it. You won't trust other taxidermists. You've opened pandoras box.
I personally do not know a single Taxidermist making 100k a year and I know a lot . Even the ones with supply companies.
Me personally I'm at like 2 months to 5 months for turnaround times. I don't take in hundreds of pieces of work. But even if I did I'd charge more to even the workload out and also have someone do my paperwork etc. Lackey stuff. Alot of this job is lackey stuff that keeps you back from getting things mounted. Paperwork ,driving to supply house,texting customers , taxes ,just business stuff. Keeping property looking nice and mowed and clean ,sweeping floors ,garbage the list goes on.
If your in this job for a living it's not horrible,but your wife needs a good job for health insurance and consistent income. and you need to live within your means. I will likely never go on a stone sheep hunt or an Alaskan moose hunt in the willows. It breaks my heart it truly does. The best bet for going on some of these hunts is just those raffles you can do . And if it's meant to be it's meant to be. But to me I came into this life with nothing at all and if I can't afford to hunt those animals all over North America . The next best thing is bringing them back to life in the shop. And if that's all I get to do . Then so be it . At least I can do the work in the shop and then go take a flight to a zoo or someplace and see them . Even if it isn't to hunt.
If hunting is your thing you have to come up with alternatives that you like to do. Maybe if you cant go on the big game hunts . You settle for hunting harlequin ducks in Alaska or hunting Rattlesnakes all over america. Etc etc.
If your trying to save money with taxidermy it's a lot battle ,the good taxidermists aren't cheap you just got a do research. Even good ones put out junk,at the end of the day this is a job and every one has bad days. I do the best I possibly can for all mounts. I never give anyone a mount I wouldn't put on my own wall. And if the animal comes to me in real bad shape I turn it down or let the guy know ,hey this isn't good .
Or find a really dumb Taxidermist that does decent work. There is a few out there that just don't charge enough. But you run into the issue where they might be years behind because they had to get a real job.
Idk if the original poster is a male or female or married or not. But just by telling women your a taxidermist you'll get shot down very quickly . Society sees it as weird or macabre. Let's say the dating pool is 100 women ,well now it's down it 10 lol.
This is an extremely rough business. I know very few people that retired from it. The hay day of hunting and taxidermy is over and I'm just hoping to get the last squeeze out of it . The juice isn't worth the squeeze really. But I'm dedicated to it and love it.
Right now for taxidermy and hunting " the Titanic hit the iceberg and people are taking the chandeliers off the ceiling " . And pulling the ladder up behind themselves. There's a lot of rough times . Super highs and super Lows. Taxidermy is for people that don't wanna work a real job and me being a Taxidermist. The work ethic of many of those people is terrible.
For example I have one customer that took some coyote skins to get tanned by another guy. It's been two years and he hasn't had them back. I sent some fox as back skins and received them back from the tannery and it was 9 months,meaning the other guy never even sent the skins to the tannery yet. Or skinned them out of his freezer.
Taxidermy is just expensive. I make 30 percent of whatever I charge. The rest is overhead and supplies and paperwork taxes etc. just because I charge 1200 for a deer. I'm not making that. And I got a mount quite a few a week to keep the bills paid . As. Taxidermist you cannot make a living just doing deer or bears or birds. You have to take it all in and do it all. For example I did a bird for a guy a few years ago because his normal taxidermist didn't do them. And the guy liked the work so much he takes it all to me know , multiple life-size predators,bears deer etc. All because it was a one stop shop and my work on the other stuff was better too and he would have never known that or me if his other Taxidermist didn't turn down the duck.
My website is Taxidermybycam.com
That's just the truth of the matter a lot of guys won't admit or say out loud. I hope that answers some questions or clarifys anything
