Day 10: Morgan Taxidermy

Written by: Khloe

Today we visited Morgan Taxidermy to learn about what taxidermy is. He told us that he started out doing taxidermy around the age of 13. And by the time he was 15 he started making and selling the mounts as a business. This was our first year on the Summer Ag tour to ever go to a taxidermist!

In his shop he has about 80 mounts, with most of them being for customers and some of his own. He loves doing birds as he can get one bird fully done in one day. He’s done mounts as little as a fish to as big as a giant moose. When doing fish mounts you don’t actually use the fishes skin/scales. People create molds of the certain type of fish which allows for the scales to show along with other specific details on the fish. Then when you go to mount the fish you mold the tail, fins, and mouth to make the fish either look like it’s out of water or in the water.

  

When getting a skin mounted it can take up to 6-12 months before you get it back. First whenever the hide is skinned from the animal it has to be salted before shipping it to the tannery (1-3 days). Tanning the hide prevents shrinking and cracking which normally takes between 1-6 months. After tanning it is ready to be mounted, this takes up to about 1-2 days to stretch the hide over the foam form, position the glass eyes, and sew all the seams. After that it takes 1-2 weeks to let the glue dry completely before clay sculpting, airbrushing, and final detail. For most animals there are replicas of the jaws, teeth, ears and eyes.

 

We really enjoyed learning about this art with Mr. Morgan.