Just reading up on different taxidermy stuff and came across freeze drying. I am planning on getting started on learning the trade of taxidermy after the holidays and wanted to know if this was another way of doing taxidermy and if so what is involved in the process and if the equiptment is expensive.
This can be a sore subject! You can ask a true taxidermist if freeze drying is taxidermy, and they'll usually say "No!" The term taxidermy means to "taxi" Glue, manipulate, adhere, etc. "dermy" or "Dermis" or skin. So most often there isn't much to freeze drying in the form of taxi-ing. I know a taxidermist who went full-time into the freeze drying business, and is probably grossing over a million dollars a year, but he spends an outrageous amount of money on his utilities bill. The start-up on the freeze driers was a huge investment. I've had a few 3 dimensional Bluegills mounted by him, that you simply couldn't manage to do with the current fish taxidermy methods. He also freeze dried my flying turkey head, and that looks far superior to an artificial head. He will freeze dry an entire fawn deer, that is absolutely awesome. You won't find any stitches on one of those mounts. You can't freeze dry a duck, because they are too greasy, but you could have a quail or Hungarian Partridge mounted though. Usually most taxidermists will let the professional do the freeze drying, and just mark up the cost to the customer. As far as knowing the how-to's, I don't have a clue. I do know he uses mothballs, and another solution to prevent pests from ruining your specimen. I hope this answers your questions. Pete
I thought that ducks could be freeze dried, I have been looking at various posts and websites which indicated that they do ducks? does anyone know where I can get some prices on equiptment
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