Award-winning Mount Airy taxidermist aims for world title this summer

Years ago, when Dalton Jeffers participated with his dad in Take Your Child to Work Day, he simply headed to a studio inside their house, filled with deer, geese and fish. At age 8, Dalton completed his first taxidermy project with his father, Tom, molding and mounting a pig.

Jeffers, of Mount Airy, has been perfecting his craft for more than 15 years.

“He sat here in the shop, playing with deer heads and stuff, carving them up, whatever he wanted to do,” Tom Jeffers said. “He’s always been trying to help me.”

Since then, Jeffers, now 23, has earned state and national titles for his taxidermy projects. Most recently he was named a national gold medallion winner by the National Taxidermy Association for his short-haired, open mouth, whitetail deer pulling an apple out of a tree. In early August, he’ll be shooting for a world title at the World Taxidermy & Fish Carving Championships in Coralville, Iowa.

For Jeffers, it’s not all about winning. He’s aiming to draw in as much information as he can at every competition he attends.

“It’s more to just go have fun and learn,” he said.

Learning the ropes from his dad

Jeffers has absorbed all that he can about taxidermy from his father. Since he could hold the tools, he’s helped his father with projects — commercial and personal — whenever he could.

“I’d be in here as a little kid and there’d be 10 deer here,” he said. “There’s customers dropping them off, and it was cool just to look at them. Coming in here and seeing my dad put them together … It’s just something special to me.”

Most taxidermists are self-taught or learn from another taxidermist, Jeffers said. Both the state and national associations host seminars at competitions and shows with master taxidermists, during which group members can register to learn tips and tricks from professionals in other parts of the country, he added.

It was with his father, family friends and at these seminars that Jeffers developed his taxidermy skills. He also has cabinets full of reference books on animal eyes, ears and mouths that he studies as he designs a project, he said.

Tinker Johnson, a family friend of the Jeffers and a former board member of the National Taxidermy Association, said it’s common to specialize in one form of the work, such as game heads or life-sized pieces. But Jeffers is different because of his ability to pick up information from taxidermists he meets on the road or at home, Johnson said.

“Dalton, if he could pick their brain, he was there helping out, learning everything he possibly could,” Johnson said. “He’s like a sponge.”

Once Jeffers graduated from Linganore High School in 2019, he began studying environmental science at Alderson Broaddus University to become a Natural Resources Police officer. Soon, he  returned home after realizing college wasn’t for him.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m going to fall back on what I know,'” he recalled.

In 2020, Jeffers and his father co-founded Rock Ridge Wildlife Artistry in Mount Airy. His father, 52, started the shop in 1988 under the name Jeffers Taxidermy, according to their website. The Jeffers work at the shop full time, and Dalton works an extra part-time job at a gun store in Mount Airy, he said.

The Jeffers have completed taxidermy projects on a wide range of animals, including bears, whitetail deer, moose, bobcats, ducks, geese, catfish and salmon. Jeffers also will soon taxidermy his first iguana, he said.

“They ask me what I specialize in, and it’s everything,” Jeffers said. “There ain’t nothing I won’t take in and do.”

The process

The Jeffers complete taxidermy projects on animals submitted from customers, who drop their animals off at a butcher. Once Jeffers or his father pick up the animals, they call customers to discuss mount options and take a deposit.

The Jeffers also source animals from their own hunting and fishing trips, which Dalton has attended since he was about 10 months old, according to his father.

“The only way I could go hunting is if I took him,” Tom Jeffers said. “I put him in my backpack, took my bow and crept through the woods, and I literally got a deer that way.”

Tom Jeffers soon adapted by creating a harness for his young son, bringing him on tree stands and later going on fishing trips in Mexico and the United States. At 5 years old, Dalton Jeffers caught a catfish they almost broke the state record for size, they said.

Once they have an animal to work on, the Jeffers will then discuss with customers various options of presenting it – a head mount, on a pedestal, posed or even with movement, Jeffers said. Sometimes he poses animals in more natural or aggressive manners; he encourages his customers to have full control of how the animal is positioned.

Jeffers carefully skins skulls of animals, and will take antlers or horns off if the animal has them, he said. He then splits the animal’s lips, turns its ears, eyes and nose and moves to get all of the meat removed from its body, leaving just the skin behind, he explained.

The skin will then be put into a solution for a few days to begin the tanning and leather process. There are two types of tans, Jeffers said, dry tans, with flexible skin, and wet tans, where the skin turns rigid once it dries. The skins are then thinned down so they can be stretched and pliable, neutralized to remove the solution, and then oiled to add back any softness and flexibility lost in the cleaning process, he said.

The taxidermists will then order a mannequin and fit the skin overtop, Jeffers said. A lot of times, deer heads are too large and need to be wedged down to fit the size of the antlers, he added.

Each piece of a taxidermy project is carefully designed with clay, wood and molds while using skin and antlers from the animal, Jeffers explained.

Taxidermists paint glass to create eyes, decorate reproduced noses and mold clay to form ear liners and details around an animal’s horns, eyes, muscles and mouth. The skin tanning process can be different if animals are mammals, reptiles or fish, Jeffers said.

While Jeffers sometimes uses different materials on his commercial and competitive projects, he emphasized that there’s no difference in quality between the two types of project.

“I tell everyone, ‘If I don’t want it in my house, why would I send it out the door?'” Jeffers said.

All about the competition

One day, as Jeffers sat on the backyard deck of the house he lives in with his father, trees dotted his view, and one particular movement caught his eye — a family of deer walked among apple trees, munching on the red fruit.

One buck stuck his head up to the apple tree and yanked down on the tree to reach another apple. Then, an idea stuck in Jeffers’ head.

“Well, that’s something I’ve never seen before,” Jeffers recalled thinking. He moved cameras down by the trees, capturing pictures of the deer eating. He drew out his ideas, and soon, an award-winning concept was born — his open-mouth, short hair, whitetail deer pulling an apple out of tree.

Competition submissions receive the most points for being “the closest thing to lifelike” as possible, Jeffers said. Projects are graded on various elements of anatomy, such as tear ducts, eye orbits, lip texture, nostril wings, vein and musculature locations on the face, and more. To get the most realistic work, Jeffers takes a lot of inspiration and reference from the animals moving in real life.

According to Johnson, many taxidermists tend to use store-bought glass eyes in all of their projects, including their competition pieces. Crafting and painting his own glass eyes sets Jeffers apart from the competition, Johnson said.

“There’s only one in 1,000 taxidermists who know how to make even glass eyes, let alone how to excel and make them lifelike enough to compete with,” Johnson said. “Dalton is one of them that’s been able to do that.”

With his latest project, Jeffers also made a leg on his whitetail deer to make it seem as though it was walking forward. Small details such as that, he said, make the biggest difference in a competition piece, where there will sometimes be hundreds of pieces scored.

Next steps

Jeffers plans to start teaching classes about taxidermy to people interested in the craft. He wants to grow his business with his father, he said, and hopes to expand to another location.

His ultimate goal is not only to become the best taxidermist on the East Coast but also develop the family business into a taxidermy supply company for custom-casted parts to use in mounts.

For Tom Jeffers, he’s watching his son succeed in competitive taxidermy as he once wished to do himself.

“[He’s] the best partner I could ever have,” Tom Jeffers said. “I can’t be more proud.”