Thanks a ton for the information guys. I'm not bashing the taxidermist and I apologize if I offended anyone. Time is money, and that's how they make their living. I was just surprised at the price his guy quoted him since it was $40 higher than the one he had done by the same taxidermist last winter.

I've messed with it enough to know that there is definitely a lot of work that goes into it. Our first hides we tanned were deer hides, and we did it old-school. We made a scraper out of a bent limb and a cut-down file (our substitute for a piece of flint). It took us half a day to find a suitable branch for our scraper, and that was by far the easiest part! We built a frame and laced the hide onto it and went to work with the scraper. Elbow grease...shoulder grease...back grease...bacon grease... LOL you get the picture I will tell you that I don't think I would have wanted to tangle with those olden-day Native American women who fleshed all the buffalo hides! I'm sure they had arms like He-Man.

We used pork brains to tan them. We actually ended up with some decent skins, but we usually wimped out when it came time to break them. It turns out if your dog gets hold of your finished hides, the gnawing action softens them up really well...

We made some terribly uncomfortable moccasins and a possible's bag that I still use.

I explained to my buddy that I won't be able to reproduce the quality that a professional is going to give him and he's alright with that (because I work for free lol). This is all experimental, and if it doesn't work (or should say, if I screw up) we can try again. There is not a shortage of coyotes around here! I don't know yet if I'm going to try to tackle his coyote, but if I do I will keep you all posted on the progress. Thanks again-

rw