Can you salt hides for storage, stack somewhere, and later tan with chemicals for a softer, more durable hide? I'd like to use a commercial tanning solution but I need the temps outside to be high enough so we are waiting while the hide pile up. I don't have the link to the solution right now. I have 100s of hides in the freezer and wanted to try salting for storage and I think it might be enough to use them for dog toys but I'd also like to use some like the steel and some of the brokens to make a rabbit hide blanket. I've got 5 hides almost dry and started going over them softening and scraping a little. When done I was thinking of stacking them in an extra rubbermaid drawer system I have some space for in the corner Shimo keeps filling with bedding.

You don't have to salt them to store them, just rinse, wring and freeze. Are you out of freezer space?

__________ Mon Feb 06, 2012 10:36 pm __________



http://www.tn.gov/twra/pdfs/tanninghides.pdf

If so, this article talks about salting them, and leaving them to dry, but if it's too cold to tan, it's probably too cold for these to air dry. I just have mine in the spare freezer until it's warm enough to tan. I will have to plan litters so I'm culling in the warmer months.

I did say 100s of hides are now in the freezer which is to hold 2 deer and a side of elk plus rabbit. The grocery bags of ziplock bags of hide are about 1/4th of a chest freezer and some in the door of the regular freezer on the fridge. Plus the amount of time they are being left frozen can lead to freezer burn if not stored with more effort than I care to apply and then they won't tan properly.

I am setting them on a strip of fleece to help wick the moisture away which fleece is known to do and rubbing in salt several times a day because it's taking them days to dry. I also soaked them in a bucket of really strong salt water overnight beforehand. They definitely wouldn't dry before rotting without the salt. If they would store that way once dry until tanning another way I could stack 100s in ventilated rubbermaid containers in the space between the cages and bookshelf that currently serves no purpose but to gather bedding Shimo madly digs out of her cage while pregnant or some corner of the garage. I don't want them to end up salt tanned only though.

Sorry...

I was just wondering why take the extra effort to salt when the freeze should be enough, unless you ran out of room to freeze. Nothing I have read so far as given any real time limit to the freezing or salting, rinsed, squeezed and stored they should easily last the winter plus, with very little extra to do to them. I have no heated space, so even with the fleece, mine would just freeze before the salt did its job anyway.
There should be no problem tanning after salting, esp. since they will be stored at a cool temp. I salted mine well before I had time to tan it; later tanning it with alum.

Some have been in the freezer for 2 years this spring but that's only maybe 4 or 5 and then butchering picked up that fall so some are 1 1/2 years while majority are last spring to now. They can start to freezer burn after 6 months if not stored well and I didn't take a lot of time on some.

WOW. Now that's a long time.

When they make sheepskins, they only salt them and then use a rough rock to buff it. Done.
So I am sure you can just salt and leave them.
"To store stretched and dried pelts, use moth crystals (paradichlorobenzene), not mothballs (naphthalene). Do not store in plastic." ~http://www.raising-rabbits.com/rabbit-pelts.html

I don't really want to do all the scraping and stretching of making soft rawhide though. I'd rather dump it in a vat of chemicals and be done with it. I'm just doing the salt to keep them from going rotten. I did see one mention that they can be stored that way and then rehydrated to normal green skin level before tanning with chemicals.


Well you have to order the chemicals in bulk around here and it really wasn't worth it for less than 2 dozen skins the first year and then I planned wrong the 2nd year and was ready to order just as winter hit. I figured we'd have our typical subzeros and not be able to tan. Then it rarely got below zero with plenty above freezing days so I probably could have done it in the garage.

Even with chemicals you will still have to scrape and stretch, although not nearly as much....

yea but it's like 20mins compared to 3hrs per hide. The salt hides will take work over days for hours at a time. They are nearly stiff as boards. The chemical tanning according to the company and the seller results in a hide that just needs stretched to dry and worked/rolled once to remove stiffness.

__________ Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:07 am __________

Also as was said on homesteadingtoday a salted hide is still a greenhide not a finished hide and will rot if it gets wet. A blanket of salted hides would not stand up to washing without partially going through curing them again and usually you back rabbit hide by fabric to strengthen the thin skin.