What I mean by ethical is that the animal was treated well and was healthy before death. I have been looking for tails mainly. Just wondering what are some signs a taxidermy seller is NOT ethical or IS ethical.

I was searching for ethical taxidermy sellers on Etsy and found SabellesMom. They seem like a decent taxidermy seller although I am not completely sure if they are ethical. For me ethical taxidermy are animals that were treated well and were healthy before death. All the tails from photos in reviews seem very full and great quality for the most part, although I am just not quite sure where they are sourced from or if they are generally an ethical seller. I found her when looking at Reddit posts and saw somebody recommend her to another person. Anybody know if SabellesMom is an ethical taxidermy seller?

Hi everyone :) I'm new to reddit, fairly unfamiliar with taxidermy and am about to begin my first diaphonisation project for an art piece, so I apologise if I don't fully understand something or mess up, I'm very much a newbie!

As I said, I've become fascinated with diaphonisation for a while now and have been doing research into it and getting things organised for me to be able to do it for a very important art piece of my visual arts course. A lot of great people have been helping me, including someone who will be putting a lot of money into getting the stains for me, so there's a lot of pressure for these results to be good.

We've recently come into a lot of complications. At first we thought we'd be able to do test pieces in the next few months then do the final piece next year. But then we've found out that we won't have time for test pieces and the first and ONLY batch has to be started later this week.

We have time to get the stains because the specimens (hopper mice, quails, a fish and a prawn) will be in trypsin for a week, but the major problem is that the popular scrib protocol uses formalin/formaldehyde, which is an absolute no-go and I need to find an alternative protocol.

I've also heard that this fixing step isn't necessary, so can I just do that protocol without the formalin step or is there an alternative protocol?? Every time i try to search for a no formalin protocol it just comes up with ones that have it 😭. If anyone could give some advice or general beginner tips ASAP I would be super grateful!!!

TLDR I need a no formalin/formaldehyde diaphonisation protocol within the next few days and beginner diaphonisation advice is also appreciated.

UPDATE

I’ve found a protocol!!! It uses potassium hydroxide rather than trypsin, but I’ll keep this post updated with my progress. I also looked at an older post on this subreddit around this topic but it wasn’t too useful. I also got my specimens today!!! Some lovely quails, mice, prawns and fish. The mice are TINY. They’re smaller than my pinkie finger so I’m worried about leaving them in tyrpsin or potassium hydroxide too long and they might fall apart. I’m sure I’ll work something out with the lovely people helping me with this project. Any advice is still welcome!!!

I’ve been wanting to start collecting taxidermy and am mainly looking for tails. Fox tails, coyote tails, mink tails, bobcat tails etc. I have been trying to find ethical taxidermy sellers on Etsy, but I generally want to see which ethical sellers on Etsy, do people recommend.

I would like to start taxidermy, but I'm having a hard time finding any animals to use that arent so damaged theyre unusable, are there any taxidermy kits that include the skin? Preferably birds, but I'm open to anything

I have quite a few cow skulls that I want to paint designs on but I’m not sure where to begin? They’re already cleaned and whitened using hydrogen peroxide. I’ve read that you can just use acrylic paint but do I need to do anything special to prep the bones? I saw someone say something about a glue bath? (50% water 50% glue). And do I need to put a sealant on after? If so what type?

Any tips or recommendations are appreciated!!

So I got a rat skeleton, and it has a lot of meat on it. I've been just using tweezers to get it off, but if anybody has any tips or something to help, it would be super super appreciated!

So I am currently working on a zombie raven costume and I've run into some snags.

I can't seem to find any photos of corvids without skin/flesh.

The mask is supposed to have a torn up face with muscle structure and such but I can't find any reference photos specifically of corvid heads without any skin.

If anyone has any I'd love to see them as Google isn't helping me at all 😭

Hi all. I have a bunch of bears that are currently dry tanned and I need to measure the eye to nose and nose to end of head for the rugshells. Just wondering should I hydrate the head to measure ? If so how do I deal with this wet head for weeks before the rugshell comes in?

I'm gonna get some birds heads soon, I'll clean some to have their skulls and I want to get a try getting the beak of one. Is there any way I can remove the beak from the skull?

I found a hit bird yesterday and harvested the wings, tail, and talons. I tried drying in salt in the past. I live in a such a humid environment though that the salt just absorbed all moisture from the air and it didn't work. This time I cut as much flesh as I could out of the wings and put in borax. I've brought it inside rather than trying to dry it outside to further avoid some of the humidity.

Questions:

1. For the wings, will borax be sufficient? I read so many different techniques I get confused.
2. I also have one talon that was in tact. It's not just scales, there's a feathery part of the leg too. I positioned the talon around a stone and put borax on where it was cut but imagine that since there's still flesh in the leg, this may not be sufficient. Thoughts?
3. Lastly, I had the thought of putting the wings and talon in a food dehydrators (don't think I'd ever use it for food again...). Would this work?

Hello!

I was gifted a dried paw for my birthday back in August and im worried it may not have been properly/fully preserved. I know it was processed in borax, but idk if alcohol was used on it before hand. Im gonna reach out to my friend and ask about that part.

If it wasn't treated with alcohol before the borax, would i be able to soak it in alcohol and do another borax drying?

Or should i try to leave it in borax longer?

Or is it toast?

Quick question! I have a few butterflies in various frames, but one of them I want to use for an art piece. I'm a florist, and create little woodland and wild scenes using dried flowers, moss, bones and what not. I want to use a butterfly for one that I'm currently working on, and I can't seem to find any information about displaying out of an airtight frame. I'm using a glass lantern with an open top, so it's not air tight in the slightest. The butterfly has been properly preserved, god knows how long ago because I found it in an antiques shop. Can I use it without it deteriorating?