Our Hairless Rat ("Monkey") died this morning. I have just started taxidermy less than a month ago & knew I would probably never mount one of our pets....I just don't think I could do something like that. "Monkey" had a golf ball sized tumor on her when she died. I still don't think that I could do it (she was a great pet & unusually affectionate) but I thought maybe if I froze her for atleast a couple of months I could then handle perserving her likeness for years to come.
My question is this: Has anyone ever mounted a completely hairless rat (save for some whiskers), can it still turn out nice because of lack of hair or will she just be discolored? The more I think about it the more I feel I should just bury her because to mount her (because of being bald) would look rather horrible (unless of course I covered her in airbrush paint). Any tips, knowledge, etc. would be helpful in this area.
Have any of you actually mounted one of your pets? Dog? Cat? etc.
Thanks,
Chad
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A hairless rat would be the best candidate for a cast. The proceedure you would use would be to embalm her with formaldehyde. You could freeze her until you were ready and then by using 10% formaldehyde inject her as in a fluid preserved specimen BUT position her so that she will be in the exact position you wish her to be. If in freezing she changes body form by a distended abdomen wrap her softly with cheesecloth to get the proper body shape or if the abdomen shrinks then add extra preserving fluid to fill out the area. By pinning on styrofoam or a wax filled tray you can position the legs exactly the way you want the finished cast, as well as the tail. When you are ready to cast the specimen, or have a professional do it, dry the surface and use room temperature vulcanized (RTV) Silicon Rubber to make the body. Since the rat is still flexible you can remove him for proper burial without damaging the silicon mold too much. Once filled with Urethane then the silicon material can be removed for a perfect cast which you can paint anyway you wish. The archives are full of casting information.
Good Luck
she'll never look like YOUR pet again. NEVER. Trust me.
JT
Personality is what you remember in pets, you cannot capture it in a mount to do the pet justice. i would bury it and find other creature you are not attatched to to start practicing on.
Dealing with a pet is difficult anyway you do it......