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 .