Caping Muley in Velvet
Mule Deer
I was able to take a great bull elk last year so this year I wanted to concentrate on a muley in velvet. I wanted to see if any of the veterans here do anything different to preserve the velvet on the antlers - it might be 2 days before I can get it to my taxidermist. Does it start to slip after the kill or should I just treat it like I would a hard antler deer? Thanks in advance!
Two days should not be a big deal as long as you try to keep it cool, and the main thing that I have learned is that you want to try not to handle or hold onto the velvet for extended periods of time. If you go to taxidermy.net you can find a ton of information about this by going to the forum section and then searching something along the lines of velvet or preserving velvet.
Bring some velvet preserve, which u can buy at most taxidermy supply catalogs and some syringes . Inject into the veins until it pushes all the blood out .
Have a couple of tubes of super glue gel on hand. Often times when they "death run" they will tear a patch or a sharp point will poke through. It's better to glue it back in place before it dries out like jerky. It's elastic when soft and you can pull the velvet back over the portruded point and glue it down. The same thing with torn patches.
Secondly, if you have to cape the deer out, remember not to pull on the cape around the bases. The velvet is tissue-connected to the rest of the cape and can tear patches up near the bases if you try and pull it around the bases. You want to cut the perimeter of the bases with an xacto-blade or something similar to ensure the velvet doesn't tear off with the cape.
You can even dust the entire rack with double mule team borax to keep the flies and bugs off and then use the more expensive velvet preserve when you get back to the taxidermist.
You can see in the accompanying photo that the back tine on the left antler poked through on impact and I pulled it up and glued it right after the photo was taken. I boiled the skull with the velvet on (which is another level of difficulty) and it's still intact perfectly.
What Cajun archer said is the same thing my taxi said to do. He also said saving depends what stage they are in because once velvet starts falling off it can be hard to save .
If the antlers are hard underneath I've used formalin and injected it. I've had just as good success with putting the antlers in a freezer for a couple months. They get freeze dried in there pretty quick. I have two personal racks I've done that with. One is 15 years old and has had 0 problems. The other I mounted three years ago and it's also fine. Bugs do like velvet so I would check them every so often and wipe them with some insect repellent.
My taxi gave me Borax to take with me as well.
My taxi gave me Borax to take with me as well.
