I am interested in having my elephant hide tanned in Zimbabwe before it is shipped back. Does anyone have any experience with these companies, good or bad, in terms of general taxidermy work or specifically tanning hides like elephant or hippo? Thanks in advance.

Mike, the tanned hides I've gotten back from Africa for rugging have been terrible as a blanket statement. Perhaps there are some quality tanners over there, but I just haven't found them yet. Good luck.

A friend of mine and I used Taxidermy Enteprizes in 1999 for 7 shoulder mounted animals. Their work is good, not excelent I would rate them a solid 7.5 on a 1 to 10 scale.

However the prices were very competitive and the taxidermy has stood up over time.

Please note that A LOT has changed in Zim since 1999.

I mount "allot" of African taxidermy work and in 36 years of full time taxidermy here in the USA I personally have never seen a good mounting tan come out of Africa, I have always had to have every hide re-tanned to even work with them. Always pure junk otherwise. I have seen "flat" tanned finished out hides from Africa that looked pretty darn good and I have seen good taxidermy mounts displayed in booths said to be from African shops at Safari Club shows and in Safari Magazine ads but I have yet to personally ever see any mounts returned to a client that I have seen that I would even rate as barely mediorce compared to professional work from a US taxidermy studio, sometimes the clients were happy anyway and of course I have the critical eye of a professional in the taxidermy business. My personal advise is: DO NOT LET YOUR SKINS THAT ARE TO MOUNTED EVEN BE TANNED IN AFRICA IF YOU WANT AND DEMAND HIGH QUALITY. If other than the very best quality EVERY TIME does not really matter to you and low price is more important to you than anything then by all means leave them there. That's my opinion and personal experience.

I shot a elephant last April and I left my panels to be garment tanned with Taxidermy Enterprizes. I went to the tannery in Bulawayo that all the taxidermy shops use to garment tan and talk to the owner and I liked what I saw. I would not advise leave anything to be mounted with any of the shop, there is not detail in their mounts mainly because of the forms they use and the tan they use for taxidermy purposes is not very good.

Just for the record, my party (July 2006) left our giraffes and zebras to be flat tanned at TE. ALL the skins were ruined by TE and my safari operator replaced the skins free of charge. I say TE ruined the skins because I saw the animals skinned and salted by Mazunga and they were properly taken care of. I have, as of today, received NONE of our flat skins and none of our other trophies that TE has in their possesion. I have received nothing but poor excuses why it has taken over a year and still have no skins or hope of ever getting them.
From what i can gather, TE used to be a reputable taxidermist but the manager quit and it sounds like a cluster **** to me. If I ever quit hunting Zim. it will be because there is no hope of ever getting my trophies back and in mountable conditions.

Not sure of the logistics of thsi, but if you can get them across the border to Life Form Taxiderm in Nelspruit they do a great job and have excellent service.
E-mails are answered sometimes within minutes and when something neds answering they call.
Great service and I recommend them every time
I am busy having a hippo done with them now so I should have pics for you in s few months
Ian

I used TE to tan my ele hide in 02' I had them tanned with a shiny look to them (pannels) in black, gray and brown. The tanned hides were excellent. I will, hopefully, be hunting ele in zim in 10 and will use them again for the tanning of the elephant hide only! The custom leather shops and bootmakers that have used the hide said it was top notch.

That being said I toured their shop and I would not reccoment leaving anything for them to mount....Their work on mounted animals was simply a joke.