Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy Is The Result Of 1 Woman’s Dream
July 25, 2021 at 10:11 p.m.
Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy Is The Result Of 1 Woman’s Dream
By David [email protected]
Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy is at 106 W. Huntington St., North Webster.
In summer 2020, she went to Central Minnesota School of Taxidermy to learn how to do taxidermy.
“It was just something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always hunted, fished and trapped, stuff like that. It’s always been in the back of my mind, so I decided to just do it,” she said in her office as the mounted deer bucks she hunted looked down on the interview taking place July 22. Taking the four months of classes in Minnesota was her first step into taxidermy.
Denny said her whole family hunts, but it was her mom she always remembered hunting. “My mom is in her 70s and she still hunts,” she said.
Denny is originally from Cass County. She moved to North Webster in September 2020 and opened up Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy Oct. 1, 2020.
“I do deer shoulder mounts. I do life-size mounts on any size animal. I do fish, birds. I do just antler mounts,” she said.
Her first was a life-size otter at the taxidermy school. The school provided the otter.
“We didn’t skin it and we didn’t flesh the hides and stuff. The hide was already prepared for us and all we did was mount it on the mannequin with the eyes, ears and do all of that kind of stuff to it,” Denny said. On a mount, the skin and fur are the only real parts of the deceased animal, though on the deer, the antlers are also real. The rest – like the eyes and cartilage in the ears – is fake. The inside of a mount is just foam.
Since opening Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy, Denny has mostly done deer. She’s also done a weasel and skunks. She said the weasel has probably been the most unusual so far “because you don’t see many of those in Indiana. They’re around, you just don’t see them very often. They’re just itty, bitty critters.”
She loves doing the life-size mammals the most, especially the small game.
“Growing up, my mom always had exotic animals all the time. Not your everyday critters, so I love the beauty of them and I just love recreating them, bringing them back to life kind of, and preserving them as natural as I can,” Denny said. The exotic animals included a fox, wolves, a baby black bear and three lion cubs at one time. “My mom was actually the top breeder for wolf hybrids in Indiana for a while. She even had some of her cubs that she had sold and was on the movie ‘White Fang.’ But we had ferrets and bobcats. We just had all different kinds of things – fox, raccoons, skunks.”
When a person gets an animal that they want to taxidermy, Denny said the soonest they can get it to her is the best. The longer a person waits, the more the animal’s body will decompose. If they can’t get it to her right away, then she said they need to wrap it up really well and put it in a freezer.
“If the antlers are broke, I can repair them. If part of it is missing, I can rebuild it,” she said.
Though she’s only been doing taxidermy for not quite a year, Denny already has won some ribbons for her work. She went down to Indianapolis a few months ago for the Association of Indiana Taxidermists State Competition. She took a skunk, the otter and a white tail deer that she had done for a customer to the contest. She received two first-place ribbons and one second-place ribbon, as well as a plaque from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for the skunk, too. She’s already planning to go back to the competition next year.
Her boyfriend makes antler lamps and furniture out of barn wood. They do “crafty” other things to interest other people. “Most of it has to do with something to do with the outdoors. Not 100%. Right now, for Dixie Day on Saturday, July 31, I’m refurbishing some furniture, but that’s probably only going to be for that,” she said.
Anyone interested in her business can find Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy on Facebook and Google maps will take you to her Facebook page. Email is [email protected] and the phone number is 574-281-2990.
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Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy is at 106 W. Huntington St., North Webster.
In summer 2020, she went to Central Minnesota School of Taxidermy to learn how to do taxidermy.
“It was just something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always hunted, fished and trapped, stuff like that. It’s always been in the back of my mind, so I decided to just do it,” she said in her office as the mounted deer bucks she hunted looked down on the interview taking place July 22. Taking the four months of classes in Minnesota was her first step into taxidermy.
Denny said her whole family hunts, but it was her mom she always remembered hunting. “My mom is in her 70s and she still hunts,” she said.
Denny is originally from Cass County. She moved to North Webster in September 2020 and opened up Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy Oct. 1, 2020.
“I do deer shoulder mounts. I do life-size mounts on any size animal. I do fish, birds. I do just antler mounts,” she said.
Her first was a life-size otter at the taxidermy school. The school provided the otter.
“We didn’t skin it and we didn’t flesh the hides and stuff. The hide was already prepared for us and all we did was mount it on the mannequin with the eyes, ears and do all of that kind of stuff to it,” Denny said. On a mount, the skin and fur are the only real parts of the deceased animal, though on the deer, the antlers are also real. The rest – like the eyes and cartilage in the ears – is fake. The inside of a mount is just foam.
Since opening Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy, Denny has mostly done deer. She’s also done a weasel and skunks. She said the weasel has probably been the most unusual so far “because you don’t see many of those in Indiana. They’re around, you just don’t see them very often. They’re just itty, bitty critters.”
She loves doing the life-size mammals the most, especially the small game.
“Growing up, my mom always had exotic animals all the time. Not your everyday critters, so I love the beauty of them and I just love recreating them, bringing them back to life kind of, and preserving them as natural as I can,” Denny said. The exotic animals included a fox, wolves, a baby black bear and three lion cubs at one time. “My mom was actually the top breeder for wolf hybrids in Indiana for a while. She even had some of her cubs that she had sold and was on the movie ‘White Fang.’ But we had ferrets and bobcats. We just had all different kinds of things – fox, raccoons, skunks.”
When a person gets an animal that they want to taxidermy, Denny said the soonest they can get it to her is the best. The longer a person waits, the more the animal’s body will decompose. If they can’t get it to her right away, then she said they need to wrap it up really well and put it in a freezer.
“If the antlers are broke, I can repair them. If part of it is missing, I can rebuild it,” she said.
Though she’s only been doing taxidermy for not quite a year, Denny already has won some ribbons for her work. She went down to Indianapolis a few months ago for the Association of Indiana Taxidermists State Competition. She took a skunk, the otter and a white tail deer that she had done for a customer to the contest. She received two first-place ribbons and one second-place ribbon, as well as a plaque from the Indiana Department of Natural Resources for the skunk, too. She’s already planning to go back to the competition next year.
Her boyfriend makes antler lamps and furniture out of barn wood. They do “crafty” other things to interest other people. “Most of it has to do with something to do with the outdoors. Not 100%. Right now, for Dixie Day on Saturday, July 31, I’m refurbishing some furniture, but that’s probably only going to be for that,” she said.
Anyone interested in her business can find Barnyard Bucks Taxidermy on Facebook and Google maps will take you to her Facebook page. Email is [email protected] and the phone number is 574-281-2990.
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