Tanned deer hides "unboxing"

rjcruiser said:

Very cool. I'm amazed at the price. I once had a taxidermist do one for me with hair on and it was $75. $25 sure sounds a lot better.

So...my questions are these...after skinning...freezing etc etc. You take them out...thaw them and then salt them. Do you use just regular table salt? Does the skin not harden when you salt them? I would figure it would dry out and get stiff as a board and be impossible to roll up.

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Excellent questions! I've sent in hides that were salted with regular table salt, rock salt, and a mix of both. Regular table salt is nice in that you get 100% coverage since you can really work it into the creases and little folds. But you can buy bulk pool salt which is much coarser and somewhat cheaper. I'm no salting/tanning expert but I've used both (sometimes together on the same hide) and the product I got back was OK with me.

My advice there would be to call whoever you plan to send them to and see what they recommend (if you can't find it on their website).

As for the drying part, you're exactly right. You don't want to let them turn to rawhide. I sent a batch of stiff-as-a-board hides in once. Hard to find a big flat box since I had to ship them all flat like that in a stack. And only a few were salvageable at the tannery. The others shredded to bits during the process. They were cool about it though and only charged me for the ones that came out OK. And they sent me the shredded bits. Still, several hides were wasted.

My understanding is that it's best to lay them out on plywood or something you can tilt a bit. And don't let them sit in direct sunlight. The tilting lets the liquids drawn out by the salt drain away. So you do want the hides to remain flexible/rollable.

Hope that helps.

Here's another thank you for sharing this, Pneumothorax. I also prefer to make as much use of any animal I harvest. Making use of the hides is something I've given thought to in the past, but never really known how I'd get started down that road. However, this would be a good and less overwhelming way to do that, so thanks for the idea/direction.

Hides are great for just throwing them around or putting stuff on them.

Brewskis said:

Here's another thank you for sharing this, Pneumothorax. I also prefer to make as much use of any animal I harvest. Making use of the hides is something I've given thought to in the past, but never really known how I'd get started down that road. However, this would be a good and less overwhelming way to do that, so thanks for the idea/direction.

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You're very welcome! I hope if you decide to try it that you post your prep-pics, finished hides, displays, things you made from the skins, etc. Same goes for anyone else. I'm always looking for ideas on how to use the leather. For example, I really think it would be cool to have a few pairs of deerskin gloves from my own deer.

Finally able to report back after trying this out. Haven't seen Pneumothorax on here in a season or two, but I haven't posted much myself recently either. Maybe this extra data point will be useful to those also thinking about trying this out.

Completion time frame was about the same for this batch of three hides. I dropped them off at Sebring Custom Tanning in May 2017, and just received them back this past Saturday.

Regarding prep, I simply put the hides in trash bags after skinning, and put them in the freezer. However, I cut out the entire hassle of salting and shipping them by dropping them off in person. We were going to the Tampa area, and Sebring was only another hour or so from there, so I put them in a cooler and they were still frozen solid eight hours later when I dropped them off. As a side note, GPS took us through the area where Florida oranges are grown, and it was actually pretty amazing to see so many miles of oranges groves as far as the eye can see.

It was $97 to have these three hides tanned hair-on ($25/hide + return shipping).

Overall, pretty pleased with the final product. I'll probably start saving all hides, and do some hair-off going forward. You just have to be patient. You will probably even forget about them until you get the phone call saying they're ready. And if you're going to be in the area to drop them off in person, there's not much to do other than store the hides in the freezer after skinning.

Very Cool!

Thanks for sharing...all of you!!

Think I might have to!