Storing deer hides for use.

[Chief RID]

What do I need to do to preserve this seasons deer hides for future use? Is there a way to do this so in the future you could use the hide for rawhide, clothing, hair on or off? I just want to have a supply for working after season with the minimum of processing during season. I should be able to scrounge about 6 or seven hides this year if I just know how to get them from field to storage. The most I will be in the field with them is 2 days and I will have an ice chest. At home I will have access to a small freezer.

[Outbackbob48]

Chief, here is how I do it and doesn't use up your freezer space. First think I do is flesh hides real good and the spread out flat and salt real well, get the edges good and keep stacking and salting, let sweat a day or two, pour of liquid and heavy salt , fold flesh into flesh roll and place in a 5 gallon bucket and snap on lid, sometimes I get 2 small hides in a bucket but usually one for one, I also like date and label doe, buck  or yearling, stack outside and forget them till your ready for project. Bob

[Mo_coon-catcher]

I'm planning to do similar this year since I won't have timr to fully process hides until after Christmas time when classes end. I plan to flesh them and tack them out to dry, then I'll roll them up and place them in an old freezer that doesn't work with some cedar boughs to store them until I have time to fully process them into whatever I want to use them for. I'll end up proposing the door open using a mesh to block out insects to keep an air flow and hopefully keep mold to a minimum. Hopefully between my friends and myself I can get enough to get atleast one each of hair off brain tan, tannic acid tanned, and rawhide. I might to a hair on or two. 

If they are fleshed and dried hair on, then you can rehydrate them later and turn it into any of the above. The hair can always be stripped off later or left on. And with a good knife and beam it only takes a few minutes to flesh out a hide with practice.as long as they are kept dry and bug free there is no need to freeze a clean, dried hide.

Kyle

[SLIMBOB]

I get mine green right off the carcass.  I freeze them until I am ready to work them.  Pull one out, flesh it well on a frame (usually), and dehair it.  I make sure and remove the membrane on the flesh side and the epidermis on the hair side when I scrape them.  You now have rawhide and it is ready for brain tanning.  I have fleshed on a beam, used ash to slip the hair, washed well to remove the oils and ground materials, and I wont say these things don't work.  I have just found the way I described above seems to be adequate.
I don't salt them at all.

[DC]

I found this video the other day. I've never done it so I have no comments

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTfa7E2N2Gg

[SLIMBOB]

Just to be clear, I have done all of these methods and they all work.  Over the years I would try this and that just to see if something worked better than what I was typically doing.  All of my work has been brain tanning so I speak here only to that.  Freezer space was never an issue as I used a freezer that was just for our hides and skins.  All the various methods had an effect on the finished product to some degree or another, and the way I described seemed to give me a hide that finished out well enough. Some on here may remember Tom Orr.  He did great brain tanning work.  Mine were never that quality, but nobody elses were either. 

[Outbackbob48]

DC, nice video find, pretty much how I store mine. Bob

[DC]

His whole series is pretty good, though maybe a bit verbose. Nice word, eh!

[darinputman]

I have only done a couple, I just layed em flat on the shop floor and salted, kept fine all winter untill I got around to fleshing and scraping the hair off and turning them into rawhide. Almost two years later still hanging on the wall waiting to be turned to be brain tanned. One day I hope to get off my rear and tan them. 

[---GUTSHOT--->]

Slimbob are you speaking of Tom Orr on the show mountain men? If so he is my favorite one on there. I also save my hides. Sometimes I wrap them up put them in the freezer as is. Other times I flesh them out then freeze and if I have time I will flesh, salt, wash, pickle (if I want the hair to stay on), then tan the hide. But I never leave salt on one then store it after a couple of days. I'm sure it works great but I hate dealing with hard stiff hides and rehydrate them.

[Outbackbob48]

Gutshot, salted hides placed in air tight container stay moist and soft, I store my in a sealed 5 gal. buckets.  Dryed hides are hard to hydrate at least for me.

[SLIMBOB]

Yes same guy.  His last name is spelled Oar.  His hides are just ...perfect really.

[SLIMBOB]

Reading this it looks as though I am speaking of him in the past tense.  I haven't seen him (except on TV) in more than a decade, but he is obviously still alive and kickin'.

[TimBo]

I try to get to them right away, but am planning to try salting at some point if I am in a time crunch.  Freezing with the hair on takes up a lot of space.  I finally cleared out the freezer this summer, then my friend moved and gave me 6 hides from his freezer.  Thanks, I guess...anyway, they are now fleshed, bucked, grained, membraned, dressed, and dry - just need to find time to soften one here and there. 

[furdressing2]

Just to add to the other posts. I owned and operated a commercial tannery for years and here is how we did our hides,
1- Remove as much clinging fat and meat as possible (salt will penatrate small areas of meat but will not penetrate fat well). Split eyes, ears nose and lips.
2- cover the flesh side of the hide with fine non iodized salt making sure to cover all areas right to the edges.
3- fold your hides once flesh to flesh and place on a piece of plywood or something similar and then raise one end, 2x4 will work to allow the moisture to run away from the hide. Let drain for 24 hrs.
4-  next day shake any loose salt from the hides and resalt with FRESH salt,repeat the salting and draining for 2 more 24 hr. periods.
5- on day 4 shake the loose salt off and hang your hide flesh up over something to allow the hide to dry.( a saw horse works)
6- after a couple of days your hide should feel like cardboard and be pretty stiff, (deer will dehydrate quicker then heavier hides like moose or elk) make sure the process is done in an area that is a warm non freezing area like a garage.
7- after the hides are dryed they can be stacked and used at your convenience.
8- to rehydrate simple place in room temperature water sufficient to fully emerge the hides. Add some anti bacterial solution which is available from a taxidermy supply and agitate 3-4 times a day. Most deer hides will rehydrate in about 8 - 10 hours. For those hides that are thicker like moose you may have to rehydrate over a couple of days. Just make sure to not leave the hides in the solution for no longer than 24 hours, change the rehydration solution after 24 hours.
 If you took care of your hides in the field (remember 90% of slippage is the result of poor handling in the field) you should have no problem. once rehydrated you MUST work your hide or place them in a pickling solution (a whole differant set of instructions!!)
 Hope this helps.