I am building a new house and trying my best to plan my new trophy room. Can someone give me the "approximate" dimensions of a Giraffe rug. I am trying to plan for the near future.
Thank You.

It will depend on the size of the Giraffe you shoot and how it is trimmed after it is tanned.
The one I have in my shop at this time measures 18' long x 11' foot wide.

Hope this helps.

Thank you for your reply. I am trying to plan my new house for present and future trophys.

I have a giraffe rug on my living room floor. It is very neat and gets lots of attention from visitors.

Ann.
I dont expect you to post a picture of your living room, but if you could, I would love to see that giraffe rug (please )

I'd like to see that as well. Never thought of a giraffe for a rug. Great idea!

Especially appropriate if you have a long hallway leading to the trophy room.

I'll try and get a photo posted soon, I am swamped with other issues at the moment!

Thanks Ann,
I'm really curious to see what it looks like. My next safari hunt, I want to take a giraffe and either have the hide made into some furniture coverings or a rug. Your post piqued my interest towards the rug. Thanks again

Perfect timing, I am going in May and have gone back and forth over whether I wanted to hunt giraffe. I have talked myself into it and can't wait to see some pictures...

I am looking forward to seeing Ann's picture also. I found this picture in a tanning catalog
and thought I'ld post it. I don't believe the rugging symmetry and quality are the best, but it will give you a bit of an idea.

That is way cool. I'd love to see the head.

Here is a photo from the one I have in shop at this time.

Thanks for the photos. I will definetly have to reconsider a giraffe.

Mary,
Thanks for the picture. That is one HUGE rug! I always forget just how big those giraffe are. Beautiful rug but I do agree, the symmetry isn't something I'd go for.

I have shot two giraffes, the first one I did as a pedestal mount. The second one I was going to do as a rug. One thing to remember, a giraffe skin is about an inch thick, and the hair will slip if not cooled down and salted really quick. After spending about $1,000 to ship the rug skin back to US, only to have the hair slip at the tannery, bottom line, no rug! Just something to remember, there are certain risks!

OK, finally, here is my giraffe. There is a bit of a sad story behind it too. I never thought I would see the skin again until I recently got it.

Here are a few views of it on my living room floor. This room is not set up as a finished room so the rug may move later when I get to painting and finishing the trim work in here. I do have a large living room, it is longer than wide but you can see the skin fits nicely in front of the wood stove.





The room is divided into three sections and the area behind the small black couch will be a library once I build book cases.


Yes, that is snow on my deck, I shovel enough off to reach the grill, there has been somewhere between 8 and 9 feet of it so far.

Anyway, you notice the head is not on this rug. I do not know where the head was removed, if it was in South Africa or with the taxidermist who originally was to work on this rug. I don't mind the head is gone but I would have liked the remaining skin to perhaps build a bench or foot rest with it.

Seeing the skin above that has a head makes me glad this one was taken off. It doesn't have a nice look like a zebra head on a rug. Either way you have it done a giraffe is a neat rug.

There is no skin slip but the tail hair did slip. The hairs did come with it but the originial taxidermist, a former competition judge, award winner and skilled artisan, went belly up after a divorce and a lot of alcohol. I had to have all of three safaris worth of material seized from him. Much of the money paid went to alcohol and not work so I am out quite a bit of cash.

Another WV taxidermist was tasked to conduct the seizure with the local sheriff in Iowa and all of my items and a few other people were collected. This was in July of 2006.

No word from the WV taxidermist until December 2007. I received a letter from the studio. They reported the original taxidermist got so sick he nearly died from chemical exposure and some replacement taxidermists now are working the studio.

I asked that my tanned skins be sent since they were already paid for. So just before Christmas 2007, the giraffe some smaller skins and my Hartmann's zebra arrived. So this one isn't 'finished' no backing but the tanning job is quite good. The tail hair is gone but the original taxidermist was going to sew them back into the tail.

The skin if very supple and the hair is shiney. Someday I may get it finished but I will wait until I get the rest of my outstanding items finished, if that ever happens. The zebra rug will get finished first I hope.

I also have items with another taxidermist who used to post here (widowmaker 416) and also seems to have run into 'personal' issues so the troubles never end. He has my leopard and 62 inch kudu from 2005 (among other things) and I paid a significant deposit for that work. I did get my hippo and leopard skull from him but it looks like he didn't do any further cleaning or whitening to either. This is a whole 'nother story....

So again stuck between a rock and a hard place with 'artists'.

Here's a few more photos from this giraffe:



I took this giraffe on a Zululand property near Pongola. It was not an easy hunt.

The skull also makes an interesting conversation piece so keep them if you do hunt giraffe.

Thank you for the pictures Ann, the Giraffe rug looks really great
Was he taken with a bow ??
It must take a lot of skill to sneak up to arrow distance on such an animal without beeing detected?

I´m sorry to learn about your misfortune regarding your trophies, and really do
hope everything will turn out right.

Ann,

I really like the giraffe skull mount!!!