I learned taxidermy from my fiance. I have been doing taxidermy alongside him for 3 yrs. now. We work in a pretty good sized shop in his back yard. We do very good work, the only taxidermist who does better work than us in our area is a man who has been doing it for 35 yrs. The only thing he does that we don't do is use nose septums. We are trying to find a good place to build a big shop closer to town and go into it full time. There are some bad backyard taxidrmists around here. One man takes in a hide, fleshes it with a knife (not fleshing machines like we use), rubs Borax or a dry preservative into the skin and then puts it on the form. He charges $185. We salt, pickle, and tan hides ourself, they are good quality tanned hides. Not all backyard taxidermists are bad.