Salting Deer Hides for Tanning, + Drying & Freezing 

How long did it take for it to dry up?

Agreed w other commenter, how long did that take you? Do you have a tutorial you followed?

@@lucasgarcia8285 a couple of days, in an unfortunately humid time. I followed tutorials for stretching and applying salt, but because of the humidity I really wanted to speed up the process. Using kitty-litter to keep moving the water on outward was my own idea. Seems to turn a litter box into a desert quickly enough. And indeed, with a very heavy raccoon hide, it dried it out about as quickly as if I'd been drying a thin-skinned muskrat.

Did you use a clay kittie litter or another kind? So many out there. Thanks in advance.

@@pattywest8371 I used the cheapest stuff, a non-clumping clay type. Didn't think having it clump up would work as well, because the clumping would eventually become more of a water barrier than a water absorbent.

tom tom if I have a hide fleshed do I need to salt it to keep the hair on

Thanks buddy.

thanks. glad I could help.

No doubt we'll be seeing that hash tag everywhere now. Who doesn't have that problem!?

addictedtoelf #tupperwarecontainerofeyeballs

That’d be a great icebreaker when meeting your daughter’s new boyfriend. Bet she’d get home on time.

Its so easy once you start to leave things in there. It's like cleaning up anything, or doing the dishes it goes from "just this once" to a habit real quick. At least with a freezer there is a physical limitation when you have to face facts lol.

@@SkillCult great informative video. Thank you for an awesome video.

HA! “honor”. Please 😒

Taylor Ha! Someone who doesn’t know who they’re talking about!

Luke Miller Eh well I can agree to disagree. I just think if you people would open your mind to seeing an animal as more than an object, you’d see how beautiful they are and how they’re not so different than us. But I guess it’s easier to pretend that they don’t have feelings and that they deserve to be treated the way they are, as long as it caters to you

Taylor animals don’t have feelings, just instinct. God gave us animal to Eat and have companionships, and in no way did he disrespect this animal.

@@Taylor-fw4ue I definitely see the animals I kill as being people. Science says they have feelings; observation says they have feelings; the only thing saying they don't have feelings is human arrogance, or BS religious dogma. So why do I kill animals and eat them? It's very much about where you live and the type of animal you hunt, but in my case, there are reasons to decrease the population of deer. CWD is a horrible way to die, and the disease is rampant here. Starvation is a problem as well if the herds get to be too large. It's not just a matter of having removed the wolf packs from their environment--it's also a matter of humans having always been part of the population-control of deer in the land I live on. The alternative is eating domesticated animals, because I eat a lot of protein, a lot of it farmed fish. In the contest between eating a CAFO-raised beef cattle, versus a deer, the more ethical thing to do is to eat deer, or other animals whose reproductive patterns are prone to result in populations above what nature can provide for. So many people will eat a pepperoni pizza and not think about the animals killed to make the pepperoni, they'll eat a steak and never think of a steer in a crowded pen, surrounded by pools of sewage. I will look at the deer as a person who wants to live and to mate; and I will take their life, and then I will NOT waste the result. They will not eat the last of the winter's food supply; they will not gather in herds and spread disease; and because they are not there, the rest of the deer will have more food and a lower likelihood of those diseases. And I will fill my freezer with meat, tan the hide to make leather, save the sinew for creating things, use the inside of the feet for neatsfoot oil, and scatter the offal for other animals to survive on. The leather will be made at home, with no chemical waste, so I can make some clothing that is not plastic and will wear for a long time; just as the furs that I make displace plastic-fabric coats. The meat will not only be more ethical than cows or pigs; the protein also means I won't be putting a demand on farmers to produce MORE soy to make "vegan meat." Honoring the animal is not even about THAT person-animal, it's about honoring the balance of living as best I can, as a human hyper-consumer. Displacing the materialistic things of a Westerner with more sustainable, harm-reducing ways of getting what I need in order to live.

It was actually probably someone else's helper lol.

Welcome :)

DITTO!!!

This guys been a pro on hides since at least the mid nineties when I got his book.

I don't tan a lot of hair on skins, so these are all going to grain leather and bucksin. Last time I pulled out many years old goat skins salted this way from these tubs, smelly and ugly looking, the leather turned out even and beautiful. Aside from letting them dry out, get too hot, soaking in the brine for years, or being inadequately salted I don't recall having any issues with the skin quality for tanning and I've been using this method for over 20 years. Again though, I'm rarely tanning with hair on and if I am, I typically don't use salted skins, although I have. salting straight off the animal with only large chunks of fat and flesh removed is the leather industry standard. That is because no one has the time to flesh before salting at the killing end of the chain. If I'm skinning deer all day, I'm not going to flesh them too. I've done it and that's one of the things that drove me to salting. I was either fleshing as I was skinning and staking skins out to dry, or I was racing to get them fleshed before they rotted when I got home. As far as I've seen, fleshing and drying without salt is the fur industry standard. Is there some benefit you are getting by salting even though you are going to freeze? Do you think it sets the hair better maybe? Anyway, experience shows this to work fine for my purposes, and I can't argue with that too much.

Thanks. I get very little flack on this channel so far, but it happens.

Too bad you can't use bleach on trolls.

@@Auriam they just need to confront the demons that make them act that way and try to grow up mentally. They also should appreciate people like Mr. Edlholm who have a great deal of knowledge that they'll share for free essentially. Over the years I've grown to appreciate everyone I meet because they know something I don't know and also have appreciated myself in a similar way. Life is very enjoyable if you keep trying to learn and share what you've learned. It's very rewarding.

I hope not, that's pretty awesome...

That can be a problem. If you use Alum or bark tanning, they will fix the hair and you can wash after tanning.

As long as you are not trying to keep the hair. Of course there is air temp and other factors to consider

@@SkillCult just got 2 deer hides mabye 1 or 2 days ago and I want to keep the hair, it's pretty cold where I am so they are already frozen just from being in my shed should I salt them?

You haven't met my wife. Skins in the freezer and motors on the table or the living room floor. She's pretty awesome!!

Borax is toxic to bugs. I think that is the only reason it's used.

Always wondered the use of borax! Thanks for your help and info buddy

It's pretty common to see that halophilic red bacteria on hides that are stacked from hide dealers. As far as I know it's harmless to the hides. If I give it air the skins will dry all the way out and I want them slightly dampl

@@SkillCult it tends to cause opportunistic infections. So most of the time it's not an issue for healthy individuals. You said you didn't know what the red growth was. I just wanted to share information on what it likely was and how to avoid it. If other ideas for avoiding it occur to me, I'll come back and share them. But I haven't studied microbiology in like 10 years

@@rocki_bb Oh, I see, you're saying it can cause direct infections, I was thinking more internal. The infections I've seen people get from hides are primarily for oversoaking and handling wet hides. Thanks for the offering; This is a common occurence in salted hides, which are common in the industry, so no doubt there is some info on it and it's been addressed at times in literature.

@@SkillCult it's pretty well known for causing infections in hospitals & in/on things that are supposed to be sterile. Some strains have developed antibiotic resistance. I'm a biology nerd trying to expand my knowledge and skill sets. I didn't really imagine I would be able bring any useful knowledge to the table 😂 Here's a link with more info about the bacteria. One way to tell if it is S. marcescens is to cool it down and see if it looses the red color. www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/serratia-marcescens

Yes Eventually they change and go bad, but you can keep them for years as long as you are not trying to keep the hair.

Not good. but you can seal them in a bucket or something and should be no smell til you open it. smells at least like old bad meat. Not completely putrid, just not good.

Hi, Welcome. I live in Northern California.

Beggs n Achin' how’d it go?

@@yourfriendlyintergalactica2452 I made moccasins....? Nobody that I gave them to complained, so....?

Beggs n Achin' sweet

You certainly can do that and it is a safe bet. I know what you mean. It will suck moisture right out of the air and drip all over.

Good for you, what is your secret!

I'm vegetarian. lol Still love pelts and i'm not above fresh roadkill. :shrug: I ruined a red fox once with borax - would have loved to have found these videos before now!!

After rinsing all the salt out, dry them as quickly as possible, using a comb on the hair to fluff it, but dry some egg yolk solution into the hair side. And work them open a little while that's going on. After that, don't resoak them again, but just use damp towels and egg yolk solution on the flesh side to get them rewetted for softening. That's a pretty typical approach for furs. Alum will fix the hair and help tan if you want to go that route.

@@SkillCult yes we want to try it both ways thanks that makes sense

hard to say what your problem is. I think I said in this video, that salting is not my first choice for hair on. some do both salt and drying, which makes sense in some situations.

You can just let it dry. Only issue is bugs could get into it. Bugs that eat skin, like skin beetles and moths. a sprinkle of dry borax can prevent that.

@@SkillCult thanks 😁

I'll keep you in mind 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Pig skin is very fatty. Flesh it very well. it can help to use a pretty sharp scraper and scrape off a thin layer of skin. The fat in pigs is incorporated into the skin usually, so it is hard to get out. Also, wash in warm soapy water. If you get all the fat out, it should be as simple as stringing it up in a wooden frame, or nailing it to a wall well and letting it dry. the nails should be sturdy and the wall too, or a thick piece of plywood. Raise the skin very slightly off the wood so air can get under it. If you use a frame, make it sturdy. Drying rawhide can exert a powerful pulling force.

Thanks so much!!

borax never goes away. If it is on and in the skin you are probably protected. The thing about salt is that it's hygroscopic, meaning it can attract moisture from the air. In a very damp environment, the skin can basically stay wet all the time and even drip. That can be a problem for long term preservation if that salt is actually dripping out with the moisture. Better to actually tan it eventually, or not use the salt and only use borax and drying it thoroughly and quickly into rawhide.

SkillCult ok thanks. Just made a reservation at my local tannery. It should keep well until then since I live in a very dry place

Well, that gets into the technical meaning of terms involved here. In braintanning and similar methods, you often condition the skin with oils from brains, or eggs possibly with added oils, soften then smoke them to "tan" them. Most methods, tanning of some kind that changes the way the skin behaves and feels is done first. Some are softened, while for other uses, they may actually be compressed and solidified by things like pounding. Softening methods in all cases can vary. There are lots of them. Stay tuned I'll get to that stuff eventually. It's a big subject area.

No, you shouldn't have to.

I use coarse refined feed salt. Not rock salt, but pretty coarse and no minerals . I have used borax to keep bugs out of skins, but don't typically use it in tanning or storage unless bugs are an issue with dried skins, moths and beetles will sometimes get into them.

thanks. There is no link to a single 10 inch bahco and hasn't been for a while. I might habve to just buy some and put them on my site.

@@SkillCult ohh ok I understand. Thanks for the reply and the content.

Seems like good reasoning, but I just don't know if it would make a real difference. Who would likely have more of an opinion is a taxidermist. There are probably lots of taxidermy channels, maybe ask there.

@@SkillCult That's true I suppose. I've just found your videos to be the best on topics like fleshing and long-term storage via salting etc. Also great videos on bark tanning, though I'm not ready to try that. I dont even know what local tree species would work since we dont have the typical oak etc. Anyways, thank you again for your insight as always.

If I had a nickle.... ;)

Apparently wood ash has a pH of 7.5 (Alkaline) so it'll loosen the hair.

Very different chemicals and effects. Ash contains strong alkalis that act on the skin. Yes, It is used to remove the hair in tanning. Some say salt has a negative influence, I've not noticed anything much myself and use mostly salted hides.

Thank you. Yes, you can do that. Just when it's not dripping anymore. It may still pool some, but it should be okay. Make sure no rust though, as it will stain and damage the skin. There is also such a thing as wet salting where the hides are brined, but I don't use that and don't know much about it.

Doesn't matter too much. Either will work. As it thaws, you can pull it apart to thaw it faster.

Thank you! Unfortunately I think I picked a bad day. The flies are going nuts for the hide. I just covered it up with a big bucket. But once I start pulling it apart they'll have back at it...

Last question I promise haha! After you flesh/salt and leave it for a few days, can you soak it for an hour and go straight to brain tanning? Or do I have to pickle it? I've seen some people say you 100% have to pickle it but others say no. I don't want the hair to slip. It's doing very well so far

You don't need to salt at all if you are tanning right away. Salt, like drying and freezing is only for preserving the skin until it is time to tan. A fresh skin is great to start with. Once salted, you have to wash all the salt out when you tan it, or at least it's better to IMO. For hair on skins, I'd probably flesh in the frame if you can, or at least put a doubled up towel on the beam. If you're going to wash it at any point, you want to dry it quickly. might as well dip it in a fatliquor (brains, egg yolks, oil). to start the conditioning process. After that, I'd keep the hair side dry, and just resoak with fatliquor repeatedly from the flesh side with wet towels. Really, way too much to cover here. I have a half assed version of hair on deer tanning in my buckskin book, but unfortunately, it's still out of print.

Ir0nMaidenFan666 .

I don't sell hides raw or tanned. I have before, but not currently.

Each hide tanned represents a lot of work, so timing, priorities, life gets in the way etc. etc.

@@SkillCult yes I hear that but why not at least tan the hide so it could be a rug or whatever you want not some nasty thing with slowly decomposing flesh on it. I hear you on time

Never seen that happen. They can get freezer burned though.

I don't think that salting is the best way to treat furs like that. Beaver are very greasy and should be fleshed thoroughly, and then some. You can put cornmeal or sawdust on the flesh side as you work to absorb more of the grease. If you let it dry, with or without salt and there is grease on the hide, then the skin will probably grease burn, which means that raw fat soaks into the skin and ruins it. If you keep it wet and salted, the hair may eventually begin to slip. My prefered approach would be to either freeze it until you can get to it, or flesh thoroughly and dry in the shade.

It's absolutely imperative that you shave that beaver.

I've reused old salt before and I know some others do. but I'm not sure about purifying it. sounds challenging.

Good to know, that you have reused (because you know that you do). l read from one finnish hide processing book, that you should't re-use salt, because it contains too much bacteria and it don't guarantee good end results. That's why l wondered if it can be purified. Edit: can you make a video about traditional fur making? l remember you said in some video, that it is harder to make with plant-tanning (because it can easily go wrong with strenght of solutions or something), but l quess that it is easier to make with animal fats.

I could. I wrote a book on it, but I have a lot of other higher priorities doing stuff that fewer people do. I haven't watched most of them, but there are quite a few braintanning vids on youtube. This is good. He's one of my teachers. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mmJz6Ok0GJw.html

I haven't noticed a little mold affecting hides much as far as tanning them goes.

I"m not familiar. depends on the size. but probably.

Yes, you can use it. Make sure it sits long enough on the skin to dissolve ans stick some. It is used a lot on thick skins, but not as commonly on thin ones.

@@SkillCult And What about Iodized table salt? because It's cheaper and easier to find in my country (Thailand). Thank you for your response.

It should work. I'd try to flesh it well, but if you only want it to last a few years, it should be fine. Just store it in a sealed tub. Hard to imagine anything dead really harming a dog ha ha. They will probably think it's just awesome the stinkier it is.

FYI, I accidentally left a ham in my trunk when my car died and left at a car dealership. They called me to come find the horrible smell in the car. Rotted pork is the worst smelling thing on earth. 🤭..🤢..🤮

one

Old salted hides never smell very good.

Because it was smoked but then but in an airtight bag the moisture that was in the hide cooled off and started doing stuff, if you still have I hope you dried it out completely with salt and airflow or put it in a salt and alum pickel

Certainly if the hide is frozen, the water won't move. Salt can cause ice to melt, but I'm sure there is a limit below which it won't. It might be good to pull it in for a couple of days and let the salt do it's thing. If it is super cold and stays that way, I guess that might be fine too, like putting it in the freezer.

Thanks homegirl :)

damn, me too, at least two!

I can't think of anyplace to reference you to. YOu might want to do alum and salt, look up the recipe. Unless putting in alum and salt or something to set the hair or tanning immediately, putting it in water is usually the last thing you want to do. It promotes hair slippage. Another option is to freeze it, or try to get the hair wrung out and dry it very fast with a lot of air circulation, like a fan. Since it is already wet though, alum tanning is probably the way to go. They are expensive, but you can get small containers of alum at the grocery store. You'll have to look up a recipe.

I don't have any videos on doing hair on hides. There's way to much to talk about here.

freezing on top of sallting isn't a bad thing, just the salting is unnecessary. Really, it's better to freeze as long as you froze it right away. Tanning it is a whole other deal though. I'm not willing to go there :) Cattle hides are tight fibered and dense by nature, so soft and supple isn't the thing they most want to be. With the hair and grain intact, it would be even more challenging.

I'd look at taxidermy resources. I don't do taxidermy. You might want to put it into an alum pickle or something to set the hair and tan it. I just don't know what they do.

Not sure I've done rabbit that way, but have seen some color change on other fur. There are ways to potentially minimize it. For one, using a light colored tanning material. Some sumacs are suppose to be very light in color. You could also dip it for just a short time to set the hair, then apply ground bark wetted well, but not enough to run, and roll it up for a while to tan from the flesh side. Native people in the arctic did something like that with alder bark.

I never have, but some people do, or have at least. It's harder. I would probably smoke it between braining/softenings. Using an prepared skin that has sat around for a year or so could help too.

SkillCult thanks! I really appreciate it

I don't know how well alum and salt would work on cattle skin. I don't use alum and salt very much, so I'm not going to be very much help. You can look up alum tanning, or tawing as it is traditionally called.

courser than table salt

Thanks for that comment. I've used towels a lot when I don't want to wash the hide or it's not going into something like alum and salt or bark to set the hair. Good way to go for braintanning.

I think they were my ex's actually. She uses them as a binder/base for paints. The contain this slime called vitreous humor. like a clear gel.

@@SkillCult I'm definitely gonna have to look into that

Wow, cool, good to know.

Probably just pretty dry already for some reason. Salt should pull out moisture if it's there. If you want the hair, dry it with the salt on, or tan in soon.

@@SkillCult Hey thanks for the reply! It was a friend's deer and the hide sat off the deer for a while before I got to it, but was still really damp and pliable. Only one small area dried a little more than the rest but was also pliable. Maybe I misunderstood, but are you saying I should dry it flat like rawhide if I want to keep the hair on? Does it fall out if I store it in a tote until Spring? I may try making a padded bag with it or something requiring the hair not fall all over.

@@DieLuftwaffel They just lost more moisture than it might seem. That is okay if the salt penetrates well. But if they were sitting around, the hair could already be compromised. If you want hair on, you really have to be on top of it and arrest the decay process quickly. I would take them out and dry them to be safe. You might also look into alum tanning. It will set the hair, sometimes even if it is starting to slip a little. You can put them straight into the alum and salt solution this week, then just dry them out and finish later if you can't finish. It should be easy to find info on the proportions of alum to salt. That is a good safe, non toxic tan. It also combines well with braintanning, or you can use egg yolks as the conditioning agent.

@@SkillCult Oh wow, sure hope it hasnt been too long! I live far north so it's quite cold, but the deer was left to cure hide-on for about a week, then thrown on the cold garage floor for a couple days, then left in a box on my porch in the cold for about a week before I salted it. Everything on it still seemed fresh to me since it was folded skin-to-skin. Even small chunks of meat stuck to the hide still looked technically edible (not that I would). But you would recommend alum tanning right away or drying it literally stiff as a board? Doesnt soaking in water to rehydrate make the hair loose? Sorry for all the ongoing questions, I just dont want to mess this up and have a few more hides waiting to prepare too both deer and antelope, which has very thin skin and not sure what it may or may not turn into.

@@DieLuftwaffel It might be okay. order alum online where it is cheap. The alum is extremely astringent and will shrink the skin around the hair roots. Its still a gamble, but it might work. You can dry it out after completely until you can research info on finishing it. I think that is the most likely to work.

thanks man. I appreciate all your comments.

You're channel is very informative.

No, that is totally fine. It's just that you don't have to flesh it, not that you can't.

It depends. if it got really warm, it could have been damaged or greaseburned if there is fat on it. Deer skins don't grease burn easily, but if it dries with a lot of melting fat it can. Also, if it dried slow, or drying was started late, it could start to break down and the hair can begin slipping. If none of that happened, which it very well may not havce, just saying, then yes, you can resoak it and tan it with the hair on. It is a journey to learn to tan skins. Learning new things and new tools, so it's never really do this in a few easy steps. At least not quality traditional natural tanning. My buckskin book is out of print right now, but hopefully it will be back in print by the end of the winter. It has a short chapter on hair on braintanning of deer skins, but it's basically a supplemental chapter and the book is about making hair off traditional braintanned buckskin. It's too expensive out of print, but here it is. www.amazon.com/Buckskin-Ancient-Braintanning-Steven-Edholm/dp/0965496554/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1513451369&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=buckskin+tanning+ancient. you could also consider bark tanning. I have quite a bit of info on this channel about bark tanning. I don't spell it out step by step, but a whole process is there. This is probably the best playlist fort that. ru-vid.com/group/PL60FnyEY-eJCcE3gKzj0GkadKlSF_8xbj. Deer skin makes beautiful bark tanned leather.

That is a good question. I don't worry about it much and can't recall any warnings about it anywhere, though that is the kind of thing I might forget. I do rinse them for sure. I'd prefer to rinse numerous times and flesh before liming, but I will often just rinse them pretty good and start them off in the lime without fleshing due to time/energy limitations. haven't noticed any problems.

There are too many variables to know if the hair will stay or not. I don't recommend learning tanning with the hair on first. but everyone wants to. as far as what to do next, that's a huge subject. You might look into alum and salt tanning for keeping the hair.

SkillCult thank you. It’s still in the tub. Per your recommendation I’ll switch to hair off. I want to learn both ways, but, if mastering hair off first is better for the newb I’ll go that way.