current prices on full body bobcat and yote

I charge $800 for a caribou, $1200 for elk and $1500 for moose. I do tend to get bent at cheap taxidermists cuz it does directly affect those tryong to get proper prices to make a living in this industry... However it'll never change so I won't waste my breath and try to explain why you're not making money even though you think you are...

 

My bobcats are $450 for a closed mouth and $500 for an open mouth cat. This includes a simple base that I make. I do 8 to 10 annually.

 

Charge what the heck you want. My bobcat prices are $300-$400 higher than most around here but yet $300-$400 cheaper than many in Kerrvile. My deer pricese are $200-$250 more than most around here and $150 cheaper than my best friends price in the Hill Country.

Here's the deal as I kinda see it. Many work their way up in price by doing better work and establishing good clientelle. You do not start out at the top of the chart. Many try to charge a higher price based on the quality that they feel is above the rest but have never established that true client base and fall flat on their face while many others do better work than many of us but live under some stupid assumption that they are the appointed ones who need to give those hard working people a 'break', they get swamped, but feel they have to serve the lower income people and burn out in 2-5 years and then their are also those who do so-so work, charge $250-$300 which is about what their work is worth and they keep a steady pace and make it with what they have.

There is room for all of them. Do not become one of those who thinks their worth is beyond what they are capable of actually getting and do not think people 'deserve' taxidermy so you charge a lower price. Find your happy medium and GROW from their. Right now I charge $550 for a muldeer, through my accounting what I wish I was getting is $675.....that is what I think I could actually make money on. $550 is a living, but not enough. I am going through the changes that will hopefully put me at $650 by 2013. Then I'll see if I can hit my $675 by 2014. Who knows what the cost of tanning, supplies, insurance, taxes, electricity, etc. will be by then so I will probably still be behind....but atleast i'm catching up. I'm ahead of many and behind a few but i'm still doing good. Keep moving forward, improve your work and the limits are the sky.

Just be careful who's advice you actually listen to. There are people who will tell you all day long that they charge $1,300 for a bobcat, $250 for the open mouth and then another $300-$400 for the habitat but they could not show you a bobcat that they have actually mounted for a customer in the last 5 years.....but then there are those who are sitting in a little 900 square foot shop out in the middle of BFE and they charge $850 for an antelope, $875 for a muledeer, $1,300 for a bobcat and $725 for a plain-simple whitetail shoulder mount and you go by their little bitty studio and their rafters are full of this years new work and they are smiling all the way to the bank.

There are those of us like me that work their fingers to the bone and make it......but still have a LONG way to go and then there are those who have truly made it and can make a$500 profit mounting 1 whitetail a day. Find those people and pick their brain and use your own intuition. We can all make it in this biz if we work smarter.

 

I usually do all my own tanning myself. A moose mannikin is around $200 compared to $170. I don't remember the moose being much more effort than an elk, but it was a small shira moose. I've already decided to up my prices on a few items for next year. I'll add moose to the list.

 

Maybe you get cheaper shipping than I do. If I order a moose manikin they cut it in half, and ship it in 2 oversize boxes. Each box via UPS costs me almost $55 each, that's $110 in just shipping. As for tanning, if you do it yourself you still have to pay yourself.

 

The moose I got last summer came in one box for around $45. I recently got a box with an elk (not cut), two deer shoulder, and a bear shoulder.

 

As long as you are comfortable with your pricing more power to you. I would suggest pricing your mounts off of the cost of a large example and not a small one however. Some of the elk I get in are 1 pc. too, but many of them are cut because of their large size.

 

Most of my elk are cut in two as well. This was the first one I've had whole, but I've never had one come in more than one box.

 

Elk, neither have I. That's one of the reasons I charge more for a moose than an elk.

 

LS Bobcat $1050
LS Coyote $1100
Moose Shiras $1400, Canadian $1500, Yukon/Alaska $1700
Deer $625

Like it has been said SO many times on here, low prices hurt the entier industry, unfortunately most taxidermists are part time and really don't have much business smarts (I am not trying to bash anyone but it is true). Low prices charged by others just hurt everyone that is trying to run a real business. There are some good articles and such on establishing your prices. They teach you about things not often figured into prices, overhead, profit, insurance and so on.