How to Ship Animal Mounts

Shipping Animal to be Mounted

• 1

  Freeze the whole animal or capped animal tissue for a head mount completely.

• 2

  Pack the animal into a Styrofoam cooler with a well-fitted lid. The cooler should leave enough space for a few ice packs, but the animal should fit tight enough in the cooler that it will not shift around much during shipping.

• 3

  Pack gel ice packs around the animal filling in the empty spaces so the animal sits snugly. If you do not have enough ice packs to fill in all the space, you can also add bubble wrap to the cooler to take up space.

• 4

  Tape the lid on the cooler with clear packaging tape and add address labels to the top of the cooler. Make sure you include the address it is to be shipped to and your return address to prevent package loss.

• 5

  Ship the package next day air. This is crucial because the animal must arrive at your taxidermist still frozen.

• 6

  Let your taxidermist know that it has been shipped. They need to make arrangements with the postal service to pick up your mount at the post office to prevent it going out on a truck and to limit their handling.

Return Shipping of a Finished Mount.

• 7

  Wrap the whole mount in brown paper sacks. Paper, unlike other packing materials will not stick to or damage the mount.

• 8

  Set the mount inside a wooden crate that is the right size for your mount. Remember that you do not want your mount to shift in transport.

• 9

  Pack paper around the mount to fill all the open space.The paper will provide padding and prevent movement.

• 10

  Nail the wooden crate closed. Exercise care when putting nails in the crate so you do not put a nail into your mount.

• 11

  Label your crate with the address it is to be shipped to and your return address. Also, write fragile on each side of the crate, so that handlers will know to handle the package with care.