Welcome to my Blog

Hi everyone! My name is Matt, and welcome to my blog. In this first post, I wanted to write a little about myself, how I got into taxidermy, and what I want this blog to be about.

I'm a 39-year-old transgender man originally from North Wales, currently living in Leicester, England. I live with my fiancé, my housemate and my very own mini zoo (my pets). I've always been an artist and have dabbled in all kinds of media: sketching, painting, sculpting, digital art, needle felting, taxidermy, pyrography, and more. If I find a new medium I like, I'll put my all into it for a while before inevitably forgetting about it for a couple of months while I'm entranced by the next most interesting thing. This means two things - firstly, yes, I do have ADHD, and two, I have a variety of different skills across mediums, which often come together in unexpected and interesting ways.

How I Got Started With Taxidermy

A taxidermy rat I made from around 2009

Taxidermy and preservation in general is something that I became very interested in around the early 2000s. I've been a pagan witch since I was a teenager, and always liked to incorporate animal parts into my rituals; for example, feathers for wafting incense smoke and as a representation of the Air element, bird feet to make into totemic jewellery, furs or skulls as a means of connection to different animal energies and as meditation aids. I would buy items like rabbit skins and crow wings for my craft, but I soon wanted to know how I could personally preserve these specimens, especially when I would come across something dead myself.

The first thing I ever attempted was to skin a rabbit I had found as road kill. It didn't go too well, but was a valuable learning experience. Up to this point, I'd watched some videos on skinning and read lots of posts on the Livejournal community "FurHideandBone" - an absolute treasure trove of information back in the day, now sadly abandoned.

So in October of 2004, with my scalpel in hand, I proceeded to remove the skin from the rabbit - rather neatly and with minimum gore for a newbie, I must say! - and laid it out on a piece of cardboard. I knew I had to salt it as the next step, but I didn't know how much salt I needed. Therefore, I sprinkled it lightly and rolled it up. Of course, I had no idea that this wasn't enough to preserve the skin, and it began to growq mould within a few weeks and ended up being thrown out. But it was a start! After that, I spent the next few months preserving bird feet and wings with salt from dead birds I'd find, salted rat and mouse pelts for art reference and later, had my first real attempt at taxidermy.

Misshapen Mice and Smelly Stoats

My first "proper" taxidermy mount, a great squirrel from around 2007

My first couple of taxidermy mounts were... something. There weren't really any good resources online at this point in time, and the only books available were either 100-year-old taxidermy manuals or American books from the 80s, which, while useful, were mostly aimed at larger mammals such as coyotes and bobcats. I learned everything from other people's posts online, whatever videos did exist in early Youtube, and through trial and error. I didn't know anyone else who did taxidermy, so I was truly on my own.

My first couple of mounts were mice that I had bought as frozen food for snakes. I went through a lot of mice trying to make a mount that didn't fall apart. I experimented with all kinds of things to make the form: cotton wool, clay, tissue paper, rags, and finally, wood wool. For their heads, I tried using the real skull, clay, plasticine, and just "stuffing" it with cotton wool. I decided mice were too hard and moved on to a squirrel I had found. For the squirrel, I decided to go back to basics and really study the old taxidermy books, especially regarding making a body from wood wool.

Finally, I created a mount that I was proud of. My grey squirrel may have been wonky, had a million mistakes, and looked generally bad, but to me at that time, I was proud of this. I had taught myself a craft which was locked behind inaccessible mentorships, highly-priced courses and was vague at best in many of the books I owned.

It was around this time that I began to purchase dead frozen animals through eBay, of all places. I got into contact with another taxidermist this way, who would help me out with specimens, measurements and general tips. I ended up with a lot of stoats and weasels this, and I was absolutely enamoured by these cute little mustelids. Upon skinning my first one, I was NOT prepared for the stink! Pro tip: Do NOT cut into those little scent glands on their rear end, especially in a small bedroom in your mother's house! Thankfully, I quickly learned to avoid these glands and how to get rid of the stink, and so I created many little stoat and weasel mounts throughout the years. They're still some of my favourite animals to work on!

About this Blog

A taxidermy rabbit I made this year.

It's been about 20 years since I started taxidermy, although I've very much been working on it on and off due to moving home, chronic illness and other life issues getting in the way. But this also means I've started up more times than I can count. I ran a taxidermy business on Etsy and DeviantArt (Fox Trail Taxidermy) from 2009-2012, which ultimately failed due to my failing health, and my ambitions being too high. I've messed up more specimens than I can count, I'd made stupid mistakes every step of the way. But even with all of that, I've always been drawn back to taxidermy. I've been forced to start over, re-learn the basics and to make new contacts after I've lost contact with old ones. I've constantly been learning, even through long breaks of not doing anything related to taxidermy. Mistakes are the best way in which we can move forward and learn; mistakes are what make us human.

In this blog, I want to write about taxidermy; what it is and how to do it, mistakes I've made and how you can avoid them, my thoughts on techniques, materials and methods. I want to review books I read about taxidermy, write beginner-friendly tutorials and write detailed reports about my projects. I want my blog to be as useful to a seasoned taxidermist as to someone who is just starting out.

I'm sure this blog will essentially shape itself as time goes on, and so this post may become redundant in the future. But for now, I wanted this to be an introduction to me, what I do and what you can expect.

Thank you so much for reading :)

Matt