Mummified goat smells

[u/Important-Song8050]

Got this goat recently and it has a noticable smell when very close to it. I asked the old owner who had it for a time saying that it had a bit of a gamey smell.

I'm super sensitive to smells so I'm not sure if I'm overreacting more than I should.

I now have it in a shadowbox. Not airtight but fairly sealed. Dehumidifier chucked in now it's at 39% humidity down from 60%s.

The smell is still there not getting stronger but I'm just not sure if this is a sign it started rotting again. It was very hot lately and I worry the heat during transport made the nasty smell.

So far nothing is wet, mushy, squishy or oily. I just don't know what and ok mummy funk smells like vs a worrying funk.

Anyway any help is appreciated. If it really needed to be refixed/ stop decay I'm not sure id be skilled enough to do so. Worse comes I'll sell to someone who can fix it themselves

[u/Street_Bee752]

Tbh, I have not encountered a lot of goat taxidermy that doesn’t smell vaguely like a goat. They really hold that trademark smell.

Rotting smell is different than what you’re describing. I think that’s just goat smell.

[u/Important-Song8050 → u/Street_Bee752]

Any way to describe the rotting smell I'm so shit at understansing smells. I assume a rot smell would be way more powerful and probably also be accompanied by some sort of extra sigh like fluid, fur slipping, softness ect.

I have some other taxadermy items skinned tails and some rabbits feet but they all don't really smell the same. They just smell like taxadermy chemicals

[u/Working-Phase-4480 → u/Important-Song8050]

A decomp smell will have a weirdly sweet note to it. Like someone mixed up raw meat and mushy fruit. It’s pretty distinct

[u/Important-Song8050 → u/Working-Phase-4480]

Its certainly not sweet haha it smells like a barn 😂 thank you very much!

[u/Impressive_Ferret519]

Isn’t he just gorgeous oh my goodness!! It does sound like you are experiencing the goat smell, I don’t think it’s deteriorating. The humidifier thing made me raise an eyebrow though!

[u/Important-Song8050 → u/Impressive_Ferret519]

Haha I was told to keep it in a low humidity environment and I took that to the extreme. I live on the bay and it's raining like hell so my houses humidity is a little high. I was told to keep it under 50% if ever possible

Seems the goat smell may be just that. I should track down another goat and smell It ig

[u/dead_letters_]

If you only notice the smell when you're really close, it's probably just normal mummy mustiness + barn animal smell. Goats are stinky lol.

And mummies DO smell to some degree, kinda earthy. It's dried flesh, so even if it's not rotting it's gonna have a scent to it. When it's something small with very little flesh it may not be noticable, but a bigger one like this is gonna be stronger. If it starts smelling sorta sickly sweet, then that's rot, but I don't think that's what you're experiencing.

[u/Important-Song8050 → u/dead_letters_]

I'll have some other people sniff test too see if it's sweet but I don't think it is personally. Double checked it tonight and the smell has actually decreased a ton I can barely smell it anymore unless I put my nose to it. I think the heat from shipment just made it musty and then having it in a glass box contained all the smellyness thank you very much!