To make a short story long……….

I have two deer hides. A White Tail and a Mullie. These are last year’s kills. We usually take our hides to a tannery and get a free pair of buck skin gloves per pelt…. Anyway, they rejected these two hides because they are too small. I thought about dumping them in the woods and let nature take it’s course, but I figured, what the heck, I’ll try to learn how to preserve these.

Anyway, a folded them up, skin side in, and put them in the freezer until I can get to them. That time has come. I thawed them out this weekend in the 55 degree sun and laid them out on a large plywood table covered in butcher paper. They are both roughly 1 yard in diameter and I used about 4 lbs of salt on each. This was Sunday.

The salt keeps getting moist so I added another pound this morning.

My questions are…..

1.) Should I keep salting until the top layer is dry?
2.) Should I scrape off the wet salt and salt it again?
3.) Just leave it be for a few weeks?

Thanks in advance!

Shake off the wet salt and apply new as needed. Once the salt is saturated, it can't do what it needs to, which is draw out the fluids. Place the hide on an incline to allow the fluids to drain away.

I hope you don't leave it out side and laying flat like that is not good ,it is better after the first salting to shake the moist salt off and apply new dry salt then drape over a 2X4 horse and in the shade, if you leave it outside it will continue to be moist and never dry.

Thanks Guys!

It is no longer outside. It was frozen and needed to thaw. It is on the garage now on a plywood table supported by saw horses. There is a slight incline; about 15 degrees.

Yes, I figured just putting fresh salt over the wet salt was doing nothing but making my fresh salt wet!

O.K. So tonight I will shake off about an inch of wet salt, then salt it again! How long should I leave it sit? It was first salted on Sunday Afternoon.

Shake all salt off and add new, In florida where I do Taxidermy it takes 2 weeks to dry hard, other areas where humidity is low much less

Thanks Again!

O.K. One skin in pretty dry, the other had some more moist and bloody spots this morning. The fat is starting to come off real easy. I was able to just peel some of it off. Also, the few small chunks of meat that are left on the skin resembles jerky. So I think I'm in the ball park.

So should I leave the salt on for another week or so? Or shake them off and hang dry for a while?

Resalt the ares where you removed fat from, as salt does not go through fat very well

Thanks again!

Sorry to be such a novice! I know that Taxidermy is an art that takes allot of time to learn, but I now have a genuine interest! This project was more of an after thought. I had two skins that the tannery wouldn’t take and I didn’t know what to do with these things…… If I do a decent job with these things, I figured I would offer the white tail to my father in law since he shot her, the mule skin is small and ragged. Since we weren’t concerned with saving the skins when we were butchering them, we were not careful when skinning the animals. Also, a friend of mine asked me for some deer skin for tying flies.

What about the tails? I have a white tail and a mule. The tails are still in tact, meaning that they have cartilage in them. Should the tails be split and remove the cartilage? Or will they cure? Or do I have to remove the tail?

Anyway, this weekend I’m going out to find a good book on taxidermy, or at least preserving skins. Any suggestions would be truly appreciated!

Alright, my plan now is to shake the skins again, clean off all the fat and meat, and salt again……..

Usually public libraries carry taxidermy books although some might be 60 yrs old they might be still instructional.

You can buy books from suppliers such as Van Dykes taxidermy supply, Wasco taxidermy supply, and many others.
To find a supplier go to WWW.taxidermy.net/forums Click on suppliers for phones or catalogs.

"What about the tails?"

Yes they need split and cured as well.You will find, rather than cartilage that they have bone and meat. Remember that you are salt curing these hides. For a long term, pemenant preservation, you will want to tan them. They will last along time dry, but not as long as tanned.