Taxidermy Competition Preparation: Tracking Your Competition Entries

By MountChief Editorial Team|Updated Mar 2026

Taxidermists who compete professionally command 15-25% higher prices from customers. That premium reflects what winning or placing in a competition signals to hunters: you're the kind of professional who holds your work to a higher standard than what the customer can see at pickup.

Competition entry tracking prevents a competition piece from getting lost in the customer queue. And if you've ever missed a competition deadline because a piece got buried in a busy November, you understand exactly why tracking matters.

TL;DR

Taxidermists who compete professionally command 15-25 percent higher prices from customers.
The customer whose mount you enter should know the mount is being used for competition before you enter it.
Competition entries should showcase your best work in your strongest species rather than your most unusual specimen.
State competitions offer expert judge feedback that is more specific and actionable than most other forms of continuing education.
NTA national competition is the highest-profile evaluation venue available to US taxidermists.
Competing early in your career, before you feel fully ready, produces feedback that accelerates skill development faster than waiting.

Why Competitions Elevate Your Business

Before getting into the mechanics, it's worth understanding why competition work pays back beyond the ribbons.

Credibility that justifies pricing. "I've placed in the state competition three years running" is a statement that converts price shoppers into committed customers. Hunters with valuable trophies want the best. Proven competition results are evidence that you are.

Skill development. Competition work forces you to push every detail to a level you might not bother with on a standard customer job. That skill improvement carries into your everyday work. Your average customer jobs get better because you've spent hours getting competition-quality work right.

Network access. State and national competitions put you in the same room as the most skilled taxidermists in the country. That network is valuable for learning new techniques, finding better suppliers, and staying connected to the professional community.

Managing Competition Work Alongside Customer Jobs

The biggest challenge with competition work isn't the technical execution. It's keeping competition pieces on a separate timeline from customer jobs.

Your customer queue operates on an FIFO (first in, first out) logic. Jobs come in, they go to the tannery, they come back, they get mounted in roughly the order they arrived. Competition work doesn't fit that logic. A competition piece has a hard external deadline: the entry date for the show.

If you track competition pieces in the same queue as customer jobs without distinction, they can get lost in the flow. A cape you're planning for state competition gets sent to the tannery in the same batch as a dozen deer capes, comes back three months later, and goes into the general production queue where it can sit until it's too late to complete before the show.

The fix is simple: flag competition pieces as a separate job type in your tracking system from intake. MountChief's taxidermy job tracking system lets you create custom job types, so a "competition entry" job is visually distinct from a "customer mount" job in your production queue.

That distinction means:

You can filter your production queue to show only competition entries
You can set a competition deadline and track backward from it
You can see competition entries in a separate report rather than hunting through your general queue

Building Your Competition Timeline

Every competition entry needs a backward-planned timeline. Start from the entry deadline and work back through each production stage.

Example for a state competition with an entry deadline of April 15:

| Stage | Date |

|-------|------|

| Entry deadline | April 15 |

| Final finishing | April 1 |

| Drying complete | March 20 |

| Mount completed | March 5 |

| Cape/hide returned from tannery | February 20 |

| Cape shipped to tannery | November 15 |

| Intake | October (archery season) |

That timeline tells you that if you want to enter this fall's archery deer in the April state competition, you need to get the cape to the tannery no later than mid-November, and you need a tannery that can turn it around in 10-12 weeks.

If the timeline doesn't work, either find a faster tannery for competition work or wait for next year's show. Rushing production to meet a competition deadline typically means compromising quality, which defeats the purpose.

Selecting the Right Animal for Competition

Not every deer, bird, or fish makes a good competition entry. You're selecting for:

Specimen quality. A perfect cape with no damage, good color, complete ears, and clean lipline. For birds, pristine feathers with no shot damage.

Size or trophy quality. Competition judges notice exceptional specimens. A massive antler rack or an unusually large bird gets attention.

Suitability for your best work. A competition entry should showcase what you do best. If your strongest skill is bird work, enter birds. Don't enter deer in a competition category where you're less confident in your work.

Manageable complexity. For beginners, a well-executed basic pose at a high skill level typically scores better than an ambitious pose executed imperfectly. Judges reward fundamentals.

Keeping Competition Records

For competition taxidermists, keeping records of entries is professionally valuable. What you entered. What show. What category. How it placed. Any feedback from judges.

This record serves multiple purposes:

Tracking your competitive progress over time
Identifying which categories you're strongest in
Building your credential list for marketing purposes
Documenting judge feedback for skill improvement

The taxidermy shop management software can store this information in a competition entries log separate from customer job records.

Handling Competition Pieces That Are Also Customer Work

Sometimes a customer's animal presents as an exceptional competition candidate. Maybe a hunter brings in a once-in-a-lifetime velvet buck or an unusual bird that would perform well in competition.

If you want to enter a customer's mount in competition, ask. Get written permission. The customer should know their animal is being used for competition, that it won't delay their pickup, and that any award or recognition will reflect positively on the mount they're receiving.

Most customers are genuinely pleased to hear their trophy is competition-worthy. It validates their hunt. And it's an honest way to expand your competition entries without having to source your own specimens.

Document the permission in the job record so there's no ambiguity later.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I manage competition taxidermy alongside customer work?

Flag competition entries as a distinct job type in your tracking system from the moment you commit to entering. Build a backward-planned timeline from the competition's entry deadline and set milestone reminders at each production stage. Review competition entry timelines weekly rather than monthly, since competition deadlines are harder to extend than customer deadlines. Keep competition work in a visible, separate queue view so it doesn't get buried in your general customer job flow.

How do taxidermy competitions affect my shop's production schedule?

Competition work adds complexity during an already busy production cycle if you don't plan for it. A spring competition entry needs to be at the tannery by late fall, which overlaps with peak deer intake. The key is treating competition entries as high-priority items with fixed deadlines rather than flexible customer-timeline items. If competition work creates real scheduling conflicts with customer commitments, choose which competition seasons make sense for your shop's capacity rather than trying to enter every show every year.

What records should I keep for taxidermy competition entries?

Keep a log of each entry including: the show name and date, the category entered, the specimen details (species, size, distinctive characteristics), the result (placement and any awards), judge feedback if available, and photos of the piece. This record becomes your credential documentation for marketing and helps you track which categories and species you're improving in over time. Storing this separately from customer job records keeps your competition history organized without cluttering your customer files.

How does this apply to solo taxidermy shops?

The principles in this guide apply to solo shops just as they do to larger operations, though the scale differs. A single-person shop may have lower absolute volume but faces the same documentation, compliance, and customer communication requirements. The practical advice here scales down to any shop size.

What is the most common mistake taxidermists make with taxidermy competition preparation?

The most common mistake is treating taxidermy competition preparation as an afterthought rather than building it into the standard workflow from the start. Shops that encounter problems in this area typically did not establish clear processes before season, which means every situation becomes a one-off decision rather than a standard response.

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Sources

National Taxidermists Association (NTA)
US Fish & Wildlife Service
Small Business Administration (SBA)

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Pre-season preparation is what separates shops that handle peak volume smoothly from those that fall behind on day one. MountChief's intake, tracking, and communication tools are designed to handle the pace of your busiest weeks. Try MountChief before your next season opener.