how to preserve pelts

[bigsol33]

i want to start keep the pelts from the animals that i shoot the only problem is i dont know how to preserve them. Also Is it the same process for every animal from Whitetail to raccoon to squrriel.

[kevin1]

Defatting the hide and salting it as it's pegged to a stretcher board is usually a good first step , this will produce a "green" hide that will keep for quite awhile.

There are a wide variety of tanning methods for as reason . I used to carve leather , which calls for a vegetable tan so that the leather will take the tooling . Most shoe leather is chromium tanned , and I have a recipe for a solution for tanning rabit hides that includes alum ,among other things . Which method depends on what the final use of the hide will be . If it's intended for display then you wouldn't want a tan that causes the hair to slip .

[live2hunt743]

What I do is just skin it like a deer or any other animal and tack it down to a piece of cardboard. sprinkle some salt n let it dry. for me it only takes a day. i dont know if thats the way to do it though because when its done drying its really stiff and smells weird so i dunno. thats what i do though.