A few years back Breakthrough did a survey and the results indicated that the average time to mount a turkey from start to finish was between 10 and 11 hours. It takes me 45 minutes to skin and about 4 hours to wire wheel the skin and remove meat from wings. By the time I wash, dry, insert wires, sew, inject feet, bondo tail, position wings and groom; I'll have well over 10 hours in a turkey. That's without even considering the head. Admittedly, I do spend a lot of extra time on the painting (about 3 hours including repairing shot holes and painting feet). Habitat work wasn't included in the survey results, but with building a base and completing habitat, it takes me about 40 hours to do a turkey from start to finish - if I do 3 at a time it takes about 60 (20 hours per bird). I have several "re-mounts" to do where clients were (justifiably) angry with other taxidermist for the mounts they received from them. I am appalled that someone would charge a customer for what appears to be taking the insides out of a turkey, replacing it with a ball of yarn, and then applying glue with a large putty knife around the eyes. Now, I realize that I'll get faster the longer I'm in the business, but I don't know if I can ever shave 10 or 20 hours off without significantly sacrificing the quality of my work. Am I really that slow, or am I doing a lot of extra work that most don't?
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I never actually timed how long it takes to do a turkey and I doubt I ever will, but let me tell you that Cally Morris, Rick Morris, Drake Morris and Tommy Armstrong all mount their birds in less than 2 hours. Of course, the bird is cleaned and prepped by that time, but they are extremely fast on top of being exceptionally good at it. I won't ever be that fast (or that good), but I usually finish one in about 1 and a half work days (however long that is) and I seldom take over an hour to paint one.
I'd suggest that you stop looking at the clock. It seems your concerns are in the quality you have and you seemed pleased with that, so let the clock set on the wall. If you charge appropriately for the time you spend, then you shouldn't worry about anything else. How much do you charge for a full strut? (Rhetorical question) Divide that by the hours and if you aren't making $25 an hour or more, then you might have reason for concern.
If you take over 10 hours, I don't see how you can make any money. Granted, quality comes first and if you haven't been at it long enough to get a "system" down, it might take you longer. Look for ways to save time... If it took me 3 hours to paint a turkey, I'd have my freeze-dryer do the painting for me. Cally charges $45 (I believe) for a paint job. Right there you saved yourself some time (and MONEY!) and I can almost guarantee that Cally's paint job will look better than any that you could do if you spent 50 hours painting it. Also, I can't imagine doing turkeys (with any speed) without a tumbler. Just keep working at it and you'll get it. Good luck!
How is it that it takes 40 hours for one, and 60 hours for 3? That means that if you are doing 3 turkeys at a time, you can do 1 in 20 hours. That's 1/2 of the 40 hours it takes you do one. I realize there is some time savings when in doing multiple tasks at a time, but those numbers just don't work for me.
I would say one of your time problems is your fleshing. At the most it should take 2 hours.....one hour fleshing would sound closer to appropriate. Are you using a stiff wheel? Dont worry about repairing shot holes UNLESS you are using the caulking method. Buy your heads prepainted! You may have to try several brands before you find one ya like. If you can skin one in 45 minutes, your other times should be alot faster than you are describing.
...Would it take to flesh a turkey using a pressure washer? How in the world do the wholesalers ever make any money?
I flesh my turkeys with the pressure washer. Takes about 5-10 minutes per bird. I spend mayber 15-20 extra minutes on the wire wheel and with a scalpel separating feather quills and getting tight areas. Usually takes 5-10 minutes to clean leg and wing bones. Total fleshing time is 45 minutes or less.
Many thanks for the responses. I'm not sure that everyone fleshes and degreases to the extent that I do. Talking to other taxidermist over the phone, I've learned that many don't even remove the meat from the radius and ulna area. When I stitch, the stitches are about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart. I understand that many will only have 4 to 6 stitches from one end to the other. As for head painting, there's no doubt it could be done much faster. But, the whole reason I started a bird taxidermy business is because of poor quality mounts I received from other taxidermist (very poorly painted heads and feet on turkeys, and poor anatomy and grooming on ducks). I've heard several taxidermists say "a duck's a duck". Well, I noticed the sprig on my pintail was several inches shorter, and that the vibrant head and speculum color on the widgeon I had mounted came back to me as a juvenile. Don't get me wrong, I realize mistakes happen and replacement parts and birds are just part of the business, but the point is - I noticed, and discerning clients will too. Getting back to the heads, I don't use the freeze dryers and wholesalers because first, I'm one of them. Secondly, all turkeys don't have a baby blue face, bright white cap, and gill red wattles - regardless of their posture. Looking at hundreds of reference pictures, you won't find many alert birds without a red face, or hanging dead turkeys without varous shades of blue throughout the entire head. I'm not knocking the others - I consider them to be at the very top of the field. But, I get most of my pleasure out of consistently striving to mount the perfect turkey. And lastly, I don't charge different prices for different poses. If you have to put a pair of tweezers on nearly every feather a turkey has, a slick turkey is every bit as difficult as a strutting one (unless shingled). Again, thanks for the responses, and best of luck.
Hey Robbie, I think we could have a contest to see which one of us is the slowest, lol! I am the slowest taxidermist I know! But, like you, I really want to mount the best looking bird I can, no matter how long it takes. Sometimes, taking extra time makes all the difference. I am glad that someone else out there takes their time on turkeys (and other birds as well.) Yes, it would be great to be able to mount a turkey in just 10 short hours, but that is just about impossible for some of us. I also like to paint my own head, and I'll sit there for however long it takes until I am happy with my work. The greatest reward of bird taxidermy is when you love the finished bird!
Person who's said what I've always thought about turkeys not ALL having the same vivid colors. I've seen my share and none of them looked as gaudy as some of the commercial work sold by these big named houses. The reds don't bother me nearly as much as some of those gunpowder blue cheeks.
Robbie, I hear what you are saying. I have a question for you? Do you make a living doing taxidermy? If not, do you plan to make a living doing it someday? Think about it. Now, I will say that there is a minimum standard of quality that should go into a mount. But, if you plan on turning out competition for your customers, you need to charge enough to make it profitable. I figured what your price should be on a turkey if you want to make money on it. I calculated it as follows:
$20 Form
$40 Head
$8 Paint/Wire/String/Bondo/Clay/Etc.
$5 Shipping
$25 Shop Rent and Utilities
$25 Insurance/Retirement
$20 Taxes/Bus. License/Etc.
$500 Labor (Assuming 20 hrs @$25 per hour)
Total =$643
Plus 10% Profit ($643 x 1.111)= $714.37
So, you should charge $715, not including a base for your turkeys. If you are not charging AT LEAST that much, you are losing money. You see, running a successful taxidermy business is about much more than the quality of your work. If you listen to anybody who is successful in this business, they will all say the same thing. You can look at Archie Phillips as an example. His fish mounts are acceptable quality. Now compared with mounts by Ken Bauman, Cecil Baird, Gary Bruch, and others, they are no where close. Yet, Archie has made more money doing taxidermy than 99% of us will ever make.
If your goal is to be a high-end taxidermist that delivers competition quality mounts, I wish you luck. If you find the right clients and charge enough for your work, you will make a good living and it won't matter how long you take to do a mount. I know personally that if I did only comp. quality work, I would lose 90-95% of my customers. I would have to charge $500 for ducks and turkeys would cost $1000+. So, I compromise. I produce a good quality piece that satisfies my customers. I think most taxidermists seek to do the same. It is noble to say that you give your customers the best mount you can do regardless of the time it takes, but I look at it in a different light. I look at it as cheating myself and my family if I don't make money on a piece.
Yes, James, I'm in this full time with the fullest intentions of making a good honest living doing it. I started 5 yrs ago mounting ducks and turkeys as a hobby. May 1, 2005, I went full time taxidermist. Knock on wood, but the work was coming in faster than I could turn it out on weekends and late nights. Cally Morris seems to be doing O.K. for himself, as well as Shane Smith. I may be wrong, but I suspect the reason for the volumes they do is exactly due to the quality - not cost - of their work. I understand you have to charge enough to justify turning out that kind of work, and I will. Hopefully, it won't always take me 20 hours to mount a competition quality turkey. That is, after all, the reason for this message in the first place. All of the math makes sense to me except for the added 10%. The $25/hour is the profit in my book. That roughly equates to $50,000/year. Hopefully, that will increase over time. If I were working for someone else making $25/hour, I wouldn't expect the added 10% profit. Furthermore, I wasn't making nearly $50k/year with my last occupation, I don't pay for shipping, and don't have $20 tied up in forms. I'm not profiting as much as I'd like, but I'm going to do my dead level best to never compromise my work to do it. Again, that's why I started doing taxidermy to begin with.
Robbie,
The $25 per hour is NOT profit...its for your labor. And you will be lucky if you make $15 out that $25 for yourself. Self employment tax is 35% plus what your normal taxes are...plus you have to pay double in social security. Profit is what you make for the business. You should be making AT LEAST 10% profit on everything you do. I try to make 15% or more. The business profits pay for things like Assoc. Dues, Magazine subscriptions, competition entries, upkeep of your facility, advertising, equipment replacement, your vacation and holiday pay, and if you have extra profits at the end of the year, you can have a nice Christmas bonus. I hope you can see where I am going with this. If you are in business, you will have to run it like a business or you will be back working for someone else within a few years. Taxidermy is a production business and you get paid to produce. You should get more speed over time and hopefully you can keep up the good quality. Yes, Cally does OK...I guess. But he makes money from judging, giving seminars, writing articles, sculpting forms, and his freeze-drying as well mounting turkeys. And he has employees that make him money. I may seem like I'm being hard, but I hate to see taxidermists who are good taxidermists fail because they have poor business skills. And it happens daily. Just because you do high quality work and you have plenty of work coming in does not mean you will have a successful business. If you aren't careful, you'll be working 70-80 hours a week and barely getting by just so your customers can have nasal posts and nictitating membranes in their bird mounts. And on top of that, they'll be complaining because it took so long. I have seen it happen. You can listen to me or you can turn a deaf ear, but I am sincere when I say I hope you make it and I wish you the best.