Help doing a Texas Longhorn Euro Mount

**Farmerdoug** · 08-19-2011, 09:55 AM

Tomorrow we've decided to take ole Charlene to the sluaghter house. She's a registered Texas Longhorn. Since she has a pretty good spread on her, I like to a do nice Euro mount if possible. Question is, I've heard that I need to cut the horns and clean out the soft tissue inside or they will rot. If that's so, where do I cut them. In the middle? At the base? Next, what do I re-attach them with? Do I use some sort of dowel and glue? Any comments would be greatly appreciated.

Doug's Lonhorn.jpg

**boarhunter67** · 08-22-2011, 03:40 PM

DON'T cut them!!! Drill a small hole in the back and soak them or bag them until they slip off. Then clean the gunk and bondo them back on. If you have any questions about this, email or message me or take them to another taxidermist who does europeans. I don't get on here very often so if you p.m. me it might be awhile before I get it. I don't think I'm allowed to post or send my email address out without Jesse counting it as an infraction so I don't want to violate the rules. I live in Kern County so if you want more info on how to do them yourself or who to send them to and can't get me on here you can probably do a google search and find me in KERN county. That size might run $150 to $400 depending on how big they are and who does them. Once they are off, clean, degrease, and whiten the skull before re-attaching them. This is if you want a Euro. If you want a horn mount you can cut the skull plate, but I'd really send them out to be done if that were the case.

**BelchFire** · 08-22-2011, 04:45 PM

FarmerDoug, I'm a little confused. If you take Charlene to the slaughterhouse, won't she come back with a nickel sized hole in the top of her skull? What'cha gonna do, bondo over that?

**Farmerdoug** · 08-23-2011, 08:06 AM

Hey Belch, your right. She does have a small .22 cal size hole, dead center of her head now. I figure that will just be a beauty mark and make for a better story. Thanks for the info boarhunter. Right now I have her soaking in a plastic 55 gal drum of water. What I did was take my sheet metal snips and cut two half moons out of the drum to match the diameter of her horns. I was able to drop the skull down far enough to almost completely cover her head. I then put a couple of plastic trash bags over to help with evaporation. I like your idea of drilling a small hole and soaking. I do have some larger water troughs that I can almost submerge the complete head and horns in. Before soaking her, I got in cleaned most all the meat I could reach. I shoved the garden hose through the spinal cord cavity and appeared to get most of the brains out. There's a good chance my chickens now have CWD or Mad Cow Disease. As soon as that stuff started shooting out, my hens formed a gang circle around me and started running off with the pieces. Here's a little pic about an hour after Charlene went to go ride with the "ghost herd in the sky". Tip to tip she was exactly 48" wide. Had her horns not curled forward, she would have been much wider.
Longhorn.jpg

**boarhunter67** · 08-23-2011, 02:25 PM

That's going to be a good looking head. I also cut a small notch (1" wide by 3"-4"long) starting at the hole where the spinal cord is to make it easier to scoop the brain out. If the hole in the head bothers you, it can be covered with white apoxy clay. You will probably have to cut the core/bases a little to get the horns back on after everything is clean since they are so curved.

**Farmerdoug** · 12-10-2011, 03:09 PM

Longhorn.jpgWell....I finally finished up ole Charlene today. Not as soon as I hung her and went for my camera, my wife already had her decorated for Christmas. As far as I'm concerned, she turned out as well as I could hope. Thanks, to all for the advice........