The first pelt

RJSchaefer":19zqrj25 said:

We have our first pelt. A very nice, soft white one from my NZ buck. Sad way to get it, but he must not die in vain!

I've now removed all the blood. The pelt still has some skin and membrane and other weird stuff on it. I got the loosey goosey junk off, but there's still a layer. I assume this will come off during the tanning. Rabbit skins need hardly any fleshing at all just because of how thin they are so I normally wait until the pickle bath before I start fleshing the skin.It's sitting in my laundry room to air dry a bit. Bad idea? Good idea? Should I throw it in the freezer? The dryer? This is the step that seems most often skipped over - what do I do with a damp green rabbit hide? If you haven't already started the tanning process and the hide just came off the rabbit it NEEDS to go in the freezer or be salted. There needs to be some way of preserving it from the elements so the bacteria doesn't grow on it. You will start to lose hair, which you still might experience some of right now. What I normally do is put the pelt in a zip lock baggy right after it comes off the rabbit and throw it in the freezer. If you don't have room to do that or it is otherwise not wise to do that then you can dump a very generous amount of salt on the hide making sure to rub it in so that you don't miss any spots and leave it on an inclined surface so that the liquid can run off.

I've already cut it down the middle - maybe I jumped the gun? - what next? I don't want to use alum, since I have no place to let chemicals sits unattended without risk of pesky tiny humans getting into them. There are a few other ways to tan hides besides chemicals. I think someone on here used brain tanning. There's a way to use wood bark (tannin) and I've heard of other's, something about mayo. A quick search on this forum will bring up a few.

I read a brief excerpt on a "lard and flour" method which sounds AWESOME, but it was 3 sentences about someone's memory of doing it. Google yielded no more results, even when I checked old-school Google Books. :shock:

Mayo? Eggs?Brain tan http://rabbittalk.com/any-one-ever-brain-tanned-i-have-questions-t13487.html Different all natural methods http://rabbittalk.com/most-natural-method-for-tanning-t13741.html That's just a couple. For questions on brain tanning I'd PM the person who did it if the process isn't step by step as I know nothing of it.

__________ Mon May 20, 2013 1:06 am __________

Can I store pelts in layers of salt in a sealer container until I'm ready to do a batch? I read somewhere that they can remain in the salt indefinitely and it won't hurt them. True/false?True

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