I must tell you that I am about ready to start saying no when a customer brings me birds that are already wrapped and frozen. I take out my birds to thaw, then I plan my day around those birds, so if a bird turns out to be a poor one I now have a gap in the day. I get more un-mountable birds that way then any other. I find birds with massive amounts of pin feathers, necks that were twisted and half the feathers gone, wings missing all the flight feathers, and birds that look like theyve been chewed on by the dog. I give all of my customers a field care guide but Im not sure they even read it. I have had customers say they will just take the bird elsewhere, they have accused me of switching birds on them. They have even accused me ruining the bird even after I have thawed it and had them come and look at it. Im telling you the joys of dealing with the general public are many. For the most part its not a big deal. Im just spouting because I thawed out 2 junk birds today. Whats a mother to do. I will continue to try to teach my customers what constitutes a bad bird, and in the mean time I will just smile like everything is fine. Ok Im done dumping on ya'll.
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Why and the hell would I distroy my wages?
I have always felt Trophy animal care should be part of HUNTERS EDUCATION.
I even had two states say they could not include that as it would be promoting a business trade.
I once had a guy ask me why I pulled so many feathers out of his bird (pheasant). He was dead serious and was not happy with it. What happenned is I made the mistake of allowing him in my studio to look at his bird prior to it being finished just after I had removed the tail fans from 4 of my own personal pheasants. It was a saturday after I just got done hunting with a friend. These were birds that I just intended to eat and I decided that they had pretty good tail fans so I decided to keep them for future replacements. Well, the guy saw all the waste feathers on the floor and thought that they had come from his bird that I had just mounted. Well his bird was missing some feathers, but that was because of his abusive field handling not my work. The bird was a really nice bird and if you didnt know any better you would never see anything wrong. Now I have a guy that goes around telling his hunting buddies not to bring a good bird to me because im too rough on them. I tried to explain to him what he had saw but he was aprently not listenning. The up side is one of the guys he told this was the guy I shot those pheasants with. Needless to say I let very few people in my studio anymore.
I hate it when that happens.... I at all possible try to intervien before the birds makes it to my shop so that I can tell the customer to bring it to me thawed, so we can look at the specimen together.
If I cant do that, which a lot of times I cant, then If it's too bad, I will call them and let them know that their bird is in poor shape and most probalby shouldn't be mounted. SOmetimes they really don't like to hear this, If they want to continue forward, I take digital pics of the progress so they can see... Then if it turns out, so much the better, if it doesn't then I have documented proof as to why it didn't.
Then they don't want to pay for a bummer of a bird, but that's a whole other story.
Jon
My reputation is on the line with every bird I do. People show thier mounts to everybody, so I really dont want a poor bird out there. Birds in other peoples houses, offices, and places of business are your best advertisment. Think about it...Hundreds of people will see that bird for years to come. I would rather have a guy mad at me for not mounting a bird then have him show it to someone after I mount it and say I do bad work. Thats potential lost business that would otherwise bring you work even if they had not seen one of your mounts. If I think a bird is not going to look good I may suggest a pose it may look good in if possible, and sometimes turn the customer away. Good bird in.....good bird out. It is some what of a different story though when it comes to a kids first bird. I will mount a kids first bird but I will tell them that in any other circumstance I would never mount a bird that poor. I have turned those birds down also. People dont like it when a taxidermist turns a bird down, and the problem is that some taxidermists will not turn anything down. We do get a bad name for that.
I have some good looking birds for displays. The customer sees them, brings in a POS bird and wants thier POS bird to look like the displays. Its hard to explain to them how crappy thier bird was.
Then they tell everyone around town how you screwed thier bird up or even traded birds with them.
From now one when I put something up in my showroom it will have the date and where I shot it on a little plaque.
In any production industry you are always told to never out do yourself unless you can do it all the time. Never submit sample parts to a customer that you know you cannot produce as part of your normal process. Expectations of a customer come from first impressions i.e. your display birds. In other words in your show room its best to have some birds that are mounted well but may be missing some feathers, may not be in the best plume, or even mount a bird full of pin featers so the customer can see what and why they look like they do. Obviously you need some of your best work also. Its an art to make even a good bird look alive, and its an imposibility to make a bad bird look as good. If your doomed before you start, dont start. I personally do not have a show room, I dont have room, but that advise has been given to me and i know it to be true.
We developed a inspection and right to refuse day..
Yep totally know the feeling of haveing the day planned and heads painted toss the bird on the bench and find it to be a colored juev woodie..NOPE aint doing it ..They never turn out ..I dont want that in the shop.. Now we either inspect them right infront of the client and discuss it take digital photos makeing sure to recourd the hole in the foot that type of thing and keep them in the clients file in the puter..Sure it takes a little longer but its much better than have been acussed..We operate in a area where ther are 8 other taxidermist..
If its froze when it comes in then we hold the deposit and when it thaws we check it out..If its a good bird themn go on like norm if not we refreeze and staple thier deposit in a envelope to the bag and call them to come pick it up..The little loss today will be better off in the future from the client respecting your opinion and looking out for them..Cause ya know dam well they are going to another and when they have the problem with the other guy they will be back......
However I will try to do the first bird for a kid ..Yep thats the one time I will take the extra time and go the extra mile..a kid is worth it so we take a photo of the kid holding the birds and this way there is no" thats my bird?"....We have been trying Alum on the skin a couple hours before the mounting..I am applying it trying to get the skin to hold the quills a little better....seems to be working a bit..Anyone have any better ideas ?