Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Salting and Tanning Question

Got a critter that I am experimenting with prepping and tanning myself.

Got him skinned tonight. Slated the hide down.

Question is, how do I store this salted hide? It's tubed so I leave it fur in, exposed hide out? Fold it up? Put it in a plastic bag???

Guidance would be appreciated.

Salting is designed to get water out of the hide so the follicles shrink onto the hair shafts. Just getting them to get wet does not cut it. Prop the hide up so it drains as fast as possible.

Make sure lips are split and ears are turned BEFORE salting. After salting that job wanders between miserable and impossible...

No idea how big this particular animal is so a couple pointers.

When rolling a salted hide for whatever reason, including freezing... roll with the head on the outside. Do NOT roll the head first. If you are freezing the head will take so long to freeze the hair just might slip.

Do not create valleys and pockets in your salted hide that do not drain. Tilt the salted hide so the water runs away from the hide.

Plastic bags have killed a LOT of fur! Keep it out in the air to drain and dry!

Appreciate it. I did screw up a little. Corrected that now so hopefully I am ok.

I've always have been told to roll with the head in, tail out in a paper bag. An older freezer works better. The newer freezers have that auto defrost and can cause freezer burn.

Most freezers these days have defrost features... and have for a very long time.

Which end is more important to you and which will freeze the slowest? Should be obvious...

Exactly. No market value in the head if you're selling to a fur buyer.

That’s how I’ve always done my capes and hides as well. Taxidermist will tell ya the same

To the OP:
Where do you live? SE Oregon here and we do not know the meaning of humidity. Skin, flesh, and lay a hide out to dry, and it's good to go. I've only ever salted and rolled a hide if one has to immediately hit the road for a few days with no preparation time.

Only if they do not know what they are talking about...

Yep, head out makes zero sense for anything you're going to have mounted, unless you're doing an ass mount I guees.


I'm also with 1minute, but I don't know what the OP has going on.

Clearly you know nothing about salting hides. For mounts the hides are salted prior to tanning. That is 100% of them at every tannery, every time. Furs for sale by trappers are flint dried, which means no salt, just air-dried. Once they go in to the tanning process they are resoaked and salted before the process starts. Lots of hides fail at that point.

If you are tanning the hide yourself or sending it in for tanning it should be salted ASAP. Period, every time. On mounts it is easy enough to fix small slips and such by cutting them out and sewing them closed, except on the face for obvious reasons. The hide rolled into the inside is the last part to dry, or to freeze when put in the freezer. Faces rolled in are the most likely to slip. It is also the area with the most likely places to rot, regardless the way you are drying.

Feel free to screw it up any way you like or want to like. It should be obvious the above is true but feel free to try to figure out where there might be the tiniest flaw...

I’ve a house full of excellent taxidermy work.... just sayin...

But in your usual way, gotta be a argument. Kudos!!

Why is Sitka like this?

He’s just a fuucking know it all azzhole, no more no less..... seems to be a prerequisite to be a “Alaskan....

Congratulations on ignoring the obvious... say and think whatever you like, there is absolutely nothing incorrect in what I have posted here. Anyone thinking differently is welcome to it but to summarize...

OP stated he is tanning hide himself, so flint drying is out of the question, period.

Anyone suggesting that salting is not the first step in tanning a hide is wrong, period.

If the logic in rolling taxidermy skins head out is too deep, you should ask advice, not give it, fact, period.

He is like this because idiots like you give advice when they do not have a clue what they are talking about.

First of all, you mention market value when the OP is talking about a skin he is tanning himself.

Second, bring a hide to a buyer with slipping hair anywhere and it will absolutely affect market value. Ever see a fur buyer grab the hair at the base of fox, wolf, or coyote, or cat, or otter ears? Want to guess what he does when it comes away with hair?

Third, if the answer to the conundrum of rolling head out is not obvious, you need to rethink it.

Obviously your only argument is the useless "argument to authority" because you have no clue what the facts are. Please continue being an idiot, it obviously comes natural to you and you are GOOD at it!

Art you are a dumb sonafabitch thats old at set in his ways, its always been your way or the highway..... The www has given you a outlet as to show the entire world what a stupid lying fuuck you really are... The alaskan way!!! congradulations

Thanks, I knew you could prove you still got it!

Yes I do...