How to Choose a Tannery for Your Taxidermy Shop

By MountChief Editorial Team|Updated Mar 2026

Your tannery is the single vendor relationship that most affects your production timeline, your cape quality, and your customer satisfaction. A good tannery gives you consistent turnarounds and clean returns. A bad tannery gives you damaged hides, unpredictable timing, and customers waiting twice as long as they should.

Switching tanneries is one of the most impactful decisions a taxidermist makes. And most shops stay with whoever they started with because switching feels risky. This guide gives you the framework to evaluate what you have and decide whether you should stay or go.

TL;DR

A tannery that promises 8 weeks and delivers 8 weeks is more valuable than one that promises 6 weeks and delivers 6 to 14 depending on their load.
Variance over 2 weeks is a problem worth discussing.
A vague answer about "making it right" is less reassuring than a clear policy: "We photograph and document damage, submit a claim internally, and credit the account within 30 days."
The 6-week quote may reflect a slow period.
This guide gives you the framework to evaluate what you have and decide whether you should stay or go.
You need to know when your hides arrive at the tannery, where they are in the process, and when they ship back.

The Five Factors That Matter

1. Turnaround Time, and Consistency

Turnaround time is what customers ask about most. But the number on the tannery's website matters less than how consistent that number is in practice.

A tannery that promises 8 weeks and delivers 8 weeks is more valuable than one that promises 6 weeks and delivers 6 to 14 depending on their load. Variance is what breaks your production schedule and your customer commitments.

When evaluating a tannery, ask about peak-season turnaround specifically. The 6-week quote may reflect a slow period. What's the turnaround in November and December when every taxidermist in your region is shipping at once? That number is the one that matters for your deer season planning.

How to measure it: If you're already using shop management software with tannery tracking, you can pull the actual average return time from your records. Actual data beats memory and estimates every time.

2. Hide Quality on Return

A tannery that produces consistent, well-softened, undamaged returns is the benchmark. You're looking for:

Consistent softness across the hide (no stiff areas suggesting incomplete penetration)
No chemical damage or burning
No excessive stretching that throws off form sizing
Clean, even tanning across the full hide

The best way to evaluate hide quality is to talk to taxidermists who use the tannery. Not references the tannery provides, but shops you find through state taxidermy associations or peer networks. Ask specifically: "Do you see stiff spots? Chemical issues? Stretching problems?"

3. Damage Rate

Tannery damage is a separate concern from hide quality. Damage includes physical damage during processing (tears, cuts, split areas) that wasn't present when you shipped.

Any professional tannery will produce some damage rate over a large enough sample. What matters is how low it is and how the tannery handles it when it happens.

Ask directly: "What's your damage rate, and what's your policy when a hide comes back damaged?" A tannery that can't tell you their damage rate either doesn't track it or doesn't want to share it. Neither is a good sign.

If you have records of your damage history with your current tannery, that data is far more reliable than any number a new tannery quotes you.

4. Communication and Responsiveness

You need to know when your hides arrive at the tannery, where they are in the process, and when they ship back. A tannery that provides tracking or status updates is worth more than one with slightly faster turnaround but no communication.

When a customer asks "where is my cape?", you need to be able to answer. If your tannery goes dark between receipt and return, you're guessing: and your customer can tell.

Test communication during evaluation. Send an inquiry email and see how long it takes to get a response. Call and see if you reach a person or voicemail. These small signals predict what you'll experience when something goes wrong mid-season.

5. Species Capability

Not every tannery handles every species at the same quality level. A tannery that does excellent deer work may produce mediocre results on bear or elk. Some tanneries specialize, whitetail-only shops often produce better whitetail results than generalists.

Know what your shop processes and evaluate tannery capability against your actual species mix. If you're a Mountain West elk shop, you want a tannery with a strong elk track record, not one that quotes elk but primarily does whitetail.

Questions to Ask Before Your First Shipment

When evaluating a new tannery, ask these questions before you send anything:

"What is your current turnaround on deer capes?" Then follow up: "What was it last November?"

"What's your policy if a hide comes back damaged?" Listen for specificity. A vague answer about "making it right" is less reassuring than a clear policy: "We photograph and document damage, submit a claim internally, and credit the account within 30 days."

"Do you provide tracking or status updates when my order ships back?" Online tracking or confirmation emails are standard in modern tanneries.

"What species do you process most? What percentage of your volume is deer versus elk versus bear?" This tells you where their expertise actually lies.

"Can you provide references from shops in [your region/volume range]?" Ask for references similar to your shop, not their biggest accounts.

How to Evaluate Your Current Tannery's Performance

If you've been with the same tannery for years and haven't formally evaluated the relationship recently, here's how to do it.

Pull your actual turnaround data. If you're using shop management software with tannery tracking, generate a report of your average shipment-to-return time by season. Compare it to what the tannery quoted you. Variance over 2 weeks is a problem worth discussing.

Review your damage history. How many hides came back with tannery-attributable damage in the last two seasons? What was the cost to you in repairs, customer communication, or customer retention? Calculate an actual number.

Note communication quality. Have there been periods where you couldn't reach someone when you had a question? Were return tracking notifications reliable?

Compare pricing against current alternatives. Tannery pricing has shifted over the past few years. You may be paying more than current market rates for the same quality.

If your evaluation produces a clear picture of acceptable performance, stay. If it reveals a pattern of problems you've been tolerating, that's the information you needed to make the switch conversation productive.

When to Consider Switching Tanneries

Switching mid-season is almost never worth it. The disruption during your busiest period creates more problems than it solves.

The best window to switch tanneries is winter. January through March in most regions. You have time to test a new tannery with a small batch before the fall rush, evaluate the results, and make a final decision before deer season deposits start coming in.

Reasons that justify switching:

Consistent turnaround overruns of 3+ weeks beyond quoted time
Repeat damage on specific species you process regularly
Poor communication that leaves you unable to answer customer questions
Pricing that's no longer competitive with comparable tanneries

Reasons that don't justify switching:

A single bad return in an otherwise solid history
A competitor's quote that's $5 cheaper per hide
Pressure from a rep without documented performance comparison

Building a Tannery Evaluation Into Your Software Workflow

The most useful thing you can do for future tannery evaluation is to track the data you need now.

A tannery shipment log (even a simple one) should capture:

Date shipped
Hide count by species
Date returned
Damage notes on return

With two seasons of that data, you have an actual performance record for your current tannery. You also have the documentation you need if a damage dispute ever escalates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I ask a tannery before sending my first shipment?

Ask about current turnaround time and what that time was during their peak season last year. Ask about their damage policy and what documentation they provide when a hide comes back damaged. Ask what species make up most of their volume. A deer-focused tannery isn't the same as one with real elk and bear depth. Ask if they provide tracking or return notifications. References from shops similar to yours in size and species mix are worth requesting.

How do I evaluate my current tannery's performance?

Pull your actual shipment-to-return times from your records and compare them to what the tannery quoted. Review how many hides returned with tannery-attributable damage over the past two seasons and calculate the cost. Assess communication quality, were there periods you couldn't get answers? Compare current pricing to market rates. If your shop management software has tannery tracking, this data is already in your account. If you're on paper, you're relying on memory, which is less reliable.

When should I consider switching tanneries?

When you have documented evidence of a pattern. Not a single bad return, but recurring turnaround overruns, repeated damage on specific species, or communication failures that affect your customer relationships. The best time to make a switch is in winter, before the fall intake season begins. Test a new tannery with a small batch in January or February, evaluate the results, and decide before the high-volume season starts. Switching mid-season is rarely the right move.

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 shop tannery selection guide?

The most common mistake is treating taxidermy shop tannery selection guide 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.

Try These Free Tools

Put these insights into practice with our free calculators and planners:

Sources

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

Get Started with MountChief

Tannery visibility is the biggest operational gap at most taxidermy shops. MountChief's tannery tracking gives you a running log of every shipment, expected return, and actual return so you always know where every hide stands. Try MountChief to bring the tannery portion of your workflow under full control.