After doing my own friends and families euro mounts for a couple of years if feel confident enough I can provide customers with a good mount. Here my question what do you guys think about simmering your deer heads? And if you prefer not to boil why not? I boil my heads and never had a problem. I measure each head before they hit the water and after cleaning and whiteing I retake the measurements and theres no shrinkage. Ive been charging $50 for cleaning degreasing and whitening to friends and family and was wondering if this is a far price for my service? I know guys wont come with there 120/150 class trophy to get boiled but would you pay the $50 to have your trophy cleaned degreased and whitened? If anyone has any further info on this subject pease post im no professional but my euros always come out great looking and any pro tips would help me out tremendously Thanks in advance for all replys and tips
I've had them boiled by someone a few times and have also used the bury them in the yard method a few times . I don't think $50 is out of line and would have paid that for a good job . I do euros on every buck that is under 150" for me and under 135" for the kids then send a few of them to a wildlife artist for a custom paint job to help me remember the hunt . Don't know what your state regs are but here if you charge for doing euros , you need to have your taxidermy license . They are not expensive (here anyway) and are good insurance against getting someones head caught up in a game violation .
If you'll do the whole process I'd defiantly pay 50 bucks for a good job! When ever I do it they look like crap and it takes me hours.
Do you have guys using beetles in your area? Honestly, if your going to charge me $50 to boil and a guy down the street is going to charge me $50 for a beetle clean I'm going with the beetles every time. Food for thought. If you do begin getting a lot of heads you may look at maceration, stinky process but it works. When I boil heads I add Oxy-Clean to the water. Takes the meat right off the skull, bleaches, and degreases all in one. I can do a deer head start to finish in about 1.5 hours including boil times.
Id pay it. Wish you were local. Think the local one i looked into is 100 for beetles so 50 is pretty good in this area. I dont like doing things with heads so i would love to not have to.
People are charging 125 her in jersey and the cheapest I seen was 95. Thought about getting Beatles and actully posted a thread about them on here not to long ago but ill be moving soon and I know thell die and NJ gets some good winters so think the cold will kill them. And back country I use oxyclean also along with some other stuff I got from a local taxidermist.
This year im gonna try a new degreasing method any suggestion? And are there any taxidermist on here that can point me in the direction of the best degreaser?
I don't know anything about doing euro mounts, but I had my buck done by a local taxidermist and it cost $95 I believe.
I paid $80 for my last two buck euro mounts. So if you do good work, $50 sounds like a steal to me. I had the same guy do a euro of my wife's wild boar too. He charged me $80. After it was done he said he was never doing another hog again
Any of you guys know about preserving horns in velvet? I shot a buck this week still in velvet and want to euro it but don't want the horns to get ruined. I always boil mine and bleach the heads they have always come out nice.
This might be helpful. Pretty sure you need to freeze them right away if you don't get them to the taxi quickly. Hunting Tips -- MonsterMuleys.com
To do a velvet euro right is tricky... The horns need to be sawed off at the pedicle and freeze dried to preserve them. The skull then can be cleaned with beetles/boiling as normal then the antlers peg/pinned to fit back onto the skull. You can do them without detaching but it's tricky to not damage the base of the velvet antlers in the process
