I am headed to Namibia in early October.

I'm trying to decide about my taxidermy... Do any of y'all have some of the larger plains game species (kudu, gemsbok, blue wildebeest) shoulder mounts on a wall with 9 foot ceilings?

It will be in my "man room" which is out of the way of normal foot traffic. The room is 22'x30' so they will not be crammed in horizontally and there will be plenty of space between them and furniture. I would like to wall mount rather than pedestal out of personal preference and cost savings if the space permits.

As always, thanks for the info.

Hi Timeoff,
I think 9 foot is completely adequate. I have a 2 story room, both levels have an 8' ceiling height (all I could get within my building envelope)The real important factor is lighting.

Mounting animals as high as is possible is also a consideration. With a large Kudu, his horn tips will and should nearly touch the ceiling. Mounts hung too low look funny. If the brisket is knee high, you feel the need to squat to check it out.

Good luck!!

Steve

My gemsbok is mounted on an 8' part of a cathedral ceiling so its eyes are about my eye level. He is head lowered and turned right. it appears like his eyes follow you as you walk around the room. I asked for the pose as it was the position he was in watching me as he was hiding as I approached. His ears twitched which gave himaway. The shot was clean at 25 yds. Don't worry about 8' ceilings.

It will be close. I have an 11'8" roof apogee and my kudu's horn tips are almost to the ceiling. His nose is 6'3" from the deck.

I have a buff mount on a 9' ceiling.

A shoulder mount kudu or gemsbok can be 60" from the bottom of the chest to top of horns depending on how you want it posed. MTG

Kudu with 50" horns will be a goodly bit more that 60", but will fit ok in a 9 ft ceiling. I have kudu, gemsBoch, impala, warthog, wildebeest in a 11 x22 ft and hope to have several more in a couple of months including buffalo and waterbuck. There are several deer mounts in the room as well.

I've got a kudu and a red hartebeest mounted on a wall with a 9 foot ceiling. The tips of the kudu's horns are almost touching the ceiling and his eyes are just below eye level for me. I wish I could mount it a little higher, but it still looks ok.

My ceilings are 8 foot. The kudu fits very nicely. It is mounted over a credenza so that it's harder to bump into. The horns almost touch the ceiling and the bottom of the mount almost touches the credenza. I had the kudu mounted in "sneak" mode.

Another question is how much of the shoulder do you want to show? I had my taxidermist make what amounts to a "neck mount" for my Cape buffalo instead of another 20" of shoulder so it would not stick out so far from the wall. This could be a problem with things like Sable where the horns sweep back very far.

I also like to have skull mounts just sitting on tables. Right now I have a hippo, a buffalo, and lion in sight of where I am typing this.

When I shot my first sable, the PH asked what I thought at the time was a strange question: "Which way do you want the head turned when it's mounted?"

Turns out the question was not so strange at all. Sables almost always are mounted with their heads turned. To hide the stitches down the back of the animal's neck, the skinner needs to cut along the side of a sable's mane that will not show when the mount is on your wall.

Bill Quimby

With 8 ft. ceilings, hanging the big boys low, over an end table or the like keeps you from bumping into it, and it works...

What- no leopard?

(I see Ingwedog in the foreground?)

This pic is a few years old, when Ingwedog was still around

If I had ever told you the story of the leopard, you'd understand why its not in the pic....
Suffice it to say the leopard got shot a LOT....

What ingwe said. My house's livingroom has 8-foot ceilings, and contains blue wildebeest, kudu and gemsbok shoulder mounts at the corners. They work fine there.

The big problem with kudu often isn't length but spread. The one in out livingroom is 50" but with a very wide spread. Putting it on the wall meant shifting a bunch of other mounts in three rooms, since we have too damn many animal parts.

I used to clean up kills of bear hunters who pooched the shot. I told the hunters I could not assure tropies would be usable. A big, really big boar came out of a swamp pond he was laying in and I shot him in the face from 15 ft. There was nothing left of the back of the head and there was a long tear in the back. He accusingly said "you did that on purpose!" My answer, "Well I sure didn't do it by accident."

As long as you don't walk by them, eye to eye level is pretty impressive actually.