Hi guys, a taxidermy question if y'all don't mind.

The situation:
My pops and I took very nice elk in 2007. It was early season and warm, the elk had shorter thinner hair, and after downing his elk it was skinned and caped within 2 or 3 hours. the cape was washed thoroughly, and frozen that night. the same procedure was done with my cape.

fast forward to this past weekend, when i went home to pick up my elk (yes, 2.5 YEARS later), and learned that dad's isn't finished. and the cape is ruined.

i am pretty sure he did the tanning himself, so my question is, would leaving the frozen cape in the freezer for 2+ years cause the hair to slip? or could that hour or two in the field be the prime culprit? My cape apparently turned out fine, and I have a good looking mount.
Dad at least has his antlers back and a refund, now he needs a new cape and new taxidermist, I just want to known if we should be calling the first taxidermist and politely asking if he would be willing to provide the cape if it was in fact his fault for ruining the cape.
Thank you

Mate, I'm not a taxidermist but i have never skinned an animal and frozen it with out salting it first! My question is did you salt it? if not maybe that could have affected it?

You did everything right except in your pick of a taxidermist. That taxidermist should of had your elk done within a year at worst and should of called right away when he had problems with your cape. Sometimes but rare well taken care of capes just slip. Elk esp. have a lot of juices going on in them and on them during the rut. Never salt a cape you are going to freeze. The salt keeps it from freezing solid. Always get as much meat off a cape as you possibly can before you freeze it. Invert the ears ,lips and eyelids and really do a good job of removing meat and fat before you salt a cape that you are going to dry out completely and always salt twice checking for roll on the edges and removing wet salt from the 1st salting. Tagging your capes with your own system is always a good idea. Most guides in my area come out of the hills with a fresh harvest within a day or so and leave the heads unskinned; it tends to be cool and cold here in the Yellowstone area during hunting seasons which helps. I advise them to salt as much as they can in that case or use black pepper as it does everything salt does except soak up and cause blood and wet dripping. I tell hunters to use a game bag for the capes asap and spray down the capes with raid as blow flies find dead animals before seconds pass. Get the skins to a taxidermist right away esp. if the head is not skinned out, he will skin it and give your horns and antlers back for you to drag around and show your mother. Most hunters pay zero attention to any of these instructions. Several times I have had bighorn rams, big bucks and elk come in with slipped throats because the hunter dragged the unskinned heads around town for a few days before bringing them in with panic in thier eyes.

Hair slip is primarily caused by bacteria. Warm temperatures and moisture provide the best environment for bacteria to grow. The best proceedure is to skin, flesh and salt to dry the cape as soon as possible. Salting twice is better, removing the damp salt the second day and re salting with fresh salt.

Washing is not the best thing to do in my opinion unless a skin is extremely dirty and bloody. Rememebr you are trying to dry the cape out so washing it will delay this drying. The salt assists in drying and helps to prevent the bacteria growth. As the skin dries, the hair roots are "locked" in place. If you feel you must wash it, I would use a bacteriacide in the water or use a salt brine solution.

No two skins are the same and some will slip in conditions where others will not. Most skins treated in the manner you describe above should be fine but that is MOST, not all.

There is really no way for you to know what the exact cause is. Most likely it was bacteria growth before it was frozen.

Also, if you are going to skip the salting and freeze a large, wet, unfleshed cape, do not just roll it up in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer. It could take several hours for the inside of that roll to freeze as the hair and skin rolled around it is insulating it. Lay the skin out as flat as possible in a chest freezer for 30 minutes to an hour, letting it cool, then fold it up an seal it in a plastic bag for storage.

Either properly flesh and salt dry your skin or freeze it as above, do not do both. salting a skin before putting it in a freezer is not a good idea.

Most taxidermists will have some sort of written agreement with a client and these usually state that tanning is done at the specimen owners risk etc... There are too many variables that are out of the taxidermists control that could cause slippage.

James beat me to it and he is correct

Thanks guys for your input. Pops will not be asking the taxidermist to replace the cape, honestly neither of us wants anything to do with him anymore. Sculptor, you are absolutely right, we picked a bad one. 2.5 years is an insane amount of time to wait. problem is, he does really good work, and the whitetail he did for me a few years ago was an 8 month turnaround and great quality. but i'll look elsewhere from now on.

An elk cape can hold heat for a long period of time. If the cape was folded or rolled and placed in a freezer then the hide in the middle of the roll/fold might not freeze for days, allowing the bacteria to ruin the cape.

I also wouldn't wash a cape in the field. Spot clean some bloody areas only.

Remember-- just because a man is a guide does not mean he knows anything about cape care. Educate yourself before going afield so you can know how to do it for yourself.

I think this is a great thread, I am always amazed that anytime there is a problem with a cape it is ALWAYS blamed on the taxidermist, when there are so many other factors that could have caused the damage (listed above). Don't get me wrong, some taxidermist are asking for it in the way they handle their business (some also listed above). I am not saying that this makes it their fault, but it opens them up to scrutiny which many times leads to false accusations. But if you have a taxidermist that typically does a good job, holds his lead times and communicates with you, don't fly off the handle when there is a problem with a cape, it happens, and their is a fairly high probability that it was out of his control.

505 gibbs is right on line.Early season and warm temps can start the cape or skin to go bad in 1 hour and NEVER wash the skin unless its a dall or goat or any white hollow haired critter to remove blood and then only diluite it.And freezing a hide is not a good idea in warm weather but if you do lay it out flat, not rolled up so all can freez at the same time with no hidden pockets to let slip later . I have all my tanning professionally done and one out of a 100 I will have one rejected and it is always a early season bull. But for the long turn around is just bull, esp.. if he is full time professional.You can always buy another cape with no problem and start with a better turn around from a full time professional taxidermist. Good luck...

www.african-montana-taxidermy.com

I was taught if you're going to freeze a hide, cool it down, fold it and freeze it.

If you're going to salt a hide, make sure you've got plenty of salt to do the job properly, and it's going to take a couple applications of salt to get the job done right. Then keep it cool and get it to the taxidermist.

NEVER try to mix the two as the salt will absorb moisture from the hide and keep the hide from freezing to prevent bacteria from growing. Think about it, if you want to get rid of ice, what do you apply? SALT!!!

quote:

Hair slip is primarily caused by bacteria.

While this is "primarily" true, hair slippage is also caused and greatly exacerbated by body chemistry and many other factors including minerals in the water that was introduced. (example; lime is used to remove hair and is in relatively high concentrations in some water sources, copper, calcium and other minerals also have adverse affects on tanning solutions) Early ”rut” bulls are often extremely pumped with hormones, are living under high stress and chemical imbalances and carry a higher body temperature not to exclude fever and infection. Additionally their neck skin is stretched and swollen and often bruised and battered from fighting and rages. So needless to say the stability and health of the hair follicle is not at its highest level.

Salt pulls moisture from the cells and also creates a mostly unfriendly environment for most forms so thus halts bacterial growth at that point it does not however remove the natural chemical (hormonal and out of balance elements) which can later react with the rehydrating solutions in a pretan. Likewise freezing does not remove them and there can be some problems related to attempting to freeze salted hides, primarily due to salt preventing or reducing solid freezing. However these are generally related to the continuation of fatty oils to break down into fatty acids which is probably not relative to elk capes that likely have very little if any fat and that have been closely skinned/fleshed.

Long time freezer storage of capes that have not been properly sealed can cause freezer burn which would reduce the ability of a skin to absorb pretanning and tanning fluids and this can have an adverse effect on tanning including hair slippage or epidural slippage.

However without knowing if the capes actually set in a freezer as you delivered them without any treatment and possibly a number of other factors it is merely speculation as to what caused this particular cape to slip, if there is any actual blame and if so, to whom what percentages might be assigned.

Depending on its size a new cape should not be hard to acquire e-mail me if you need any assistance with getting one.

Best regards
Mike Ohlmann
Mike's Custom Taxidermy Inc.
4102 Cane Run Rd.
Louisville KY 40216
502-448-1309
Mike@mikescustomtaxidermy.com