Preparing Hides for Storage

by Frank Sherwood

With hunting season fast approaching, you might want to start considering how many hides you'll want to brain tan for the upcoming year.

Where it's legal to buy hides, you can check out the butcher shops that cut and wrap game. Some of them just throw the hides out so you might get them for free or you might have to pay a few bucks per hide. It is a good idea to check through the hides and find the largest ones with the least amount of holes and score marks left from a bad skinning job. It the hides are salted, wash and rinse all the salt out in several changes of fresh water.

To store the hides you can freeze them with the fat and meat left on. Roll the hides up in a tight bundle with the hair out. Take that bundle and put it in a clean garbage bag. Squeeze the air out of the bag and tie it off and freeze it. It will keep for a year or more.

You can also rack the hide and flesh it with your scraping tool then let it dry. Cut the hide from the rack and store them flat or rolled up in a cool dry place. They will keep for years. Watch out for bugs, rodents and dogs, as they can get into the hides and destroy them in no time. l have spread Borax liberally on hides and in between them to keep out bugs and it has worked well.

Another neat trick for getting the fat and meat off comes from Bill Oscanyon in Virginia. If you have buzzards in your area, lay the hides flesh side up in the rack or pegged to the ground on a cool dry day. After the buzzards find it, do not disturb them and they will pick it clean within about a day's time. Not bad... now you armchair survivalists can get this done with the least amount of work!!

From True Tracks, Summer-Fall 1995, published by the Tracker School.
For more articles from True Tracks, visit the Tracker Trail website.