I hope some real taxidermists might be able to help me on this. When I brought my whitetail deer home from Montana this year, I brought the front forelegs and hooves home as well since I thought my two boys (3 and 5 years old) might like to see them. My Dad made the comment that I should save them and make a gun rack/hat rack for the boys to put in their room. Of course the boys latched onto this idea so now I am apparently on the hook for providing this to them. I haven't done anything to the hooves other than to clean them up and tie them down so that they could dry in a position so that the hooves are now at an approximate right angle to the forlegs. My question is: Can I just mount these legs as is to a wooden placque or do I really need to skin them out and have them tanned, etc. by a tannery and then mount them on a form or some such thing?? I initially thought that I could just mount them as is with the bone still in them, but the more I think about it I start worrying that once in their room they will start to decay/rot and stink and I'll have to throw them out. As you can tell, I'm no taxidermist so any advice on how to proceed would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Test

They would need to be skinned, fleshed, salted and tanned or indeed they will rot on the board and attract dermestids (bugs, which could damage any of your other mounts). There are commercial forms for hat/gun rack deer legs. Any taxidermist could do this novelty item. I believe you could even purchase a kit and do it yourself.

The next important questions....how long ago was your hunt and where have the legs been stored? If its been longer than several days and those legs have not been in a freezer or a very cold area, well, they are beyond salvaging.

If you need to pitch them you could call a taxidermist and see if he has any deer legs in the freezer (hey, don't laugh, I keep Zebra legs on hand). You could get them mounted up and your boys won't know the difference, if their little hearts are set on the hat rack.

Hope this helps,
Mary

Mary is correct. Here is another option, buy some ready to go:

http://www.vandykestaxidermy.c...5D%5Bcolor%5D%5B%5D=

The kids will never know!

Thanks Mary and Grafton. I was afraid this was the case. The hooves have been stored in the cold gararge for the last two months and don't seem to be rotted or anything, but I'm not sure how good they really are. I'll have to take a better look at them before I decide what to do with them.

Thanks for the help and for answering my questions.
Test