I will need salt for capes for a couple of hunts coming up. How much salt per cape should I plan on for: 1) antelope; 2) deer; 3) elk?

Has anyone used the Butt Out Tool shown in the Cabela's catalog for disconnecting and removing the anal alimentary? Does it work? How well?

My technique for this chore is to cut around the anus by sticking my knife in as far as it will go, close to the anus, and cut around it in a circle. Then, I open up the belly and cut around the scrotum & penis. Next, I pull the anus & alimentary canal (carefully) through the pelvic arch.

Looks as though the Cabela's tool might be a tad bit easier- if it works as advertized.

Oops, I omitted a word in my preceding post. Second sentence should read ". . . anal alimentary canal. . ."- not ". . .anal alimentary. . ." Sorry.

Cannot answer the salt ? But as far as the Buttout goes it works well. The trick though is make sure when you pull the plumping make sure it is actually dissconnected. You can pull it out without breaking the connective tissue. There is lots of stretch in the plumbing. Once you have it pulled out take a plastic wire tie and lock it down tight in front of the buttout cut between the buttout and the tie. Works well on whitetails have not tried it on anything larger. Just make sure you break the connective tissue.

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I will need salt for capes for a couple of hunts coming up. How much salt per cape should I plan on for: 1) antelope; 2) deer; 3) elk?

For shoulder mounts I would recommend these amounts as a general guideline on PROPERLY FLESHED capes:

Antelope and deer: 5-10 1bs. salt, each
Elk: 15-20lbs. salt, each

As long as you are not hiking in somewhere, I would take more. Salt is cheap, more will not hurt, too little is not enough.

Another vote for the buttout tool for deer. It works well and saves some time.

use only fine salt and rub and rerub the salt into every corner of the hide. at the studio we use alot of salt per cape but in the field you must improvise. I shot a 9'9'' brownie and only had 15 lb of fine salt and it was rubbed twice over and again and it worked--just like powder, keep it dry, wet salt dosen't work...

www.african-montana-taxidermy.com

Normally in our area, the cheapest fine salt supply is farmer's feed suppliers. Locally 50 pounds is about $5 currently. I haven't used the butt out tool but some friends seem to like it. We hang and quarter our deer without removing the anus (field dress like normal, cut colon off as close to anus as possible down in pelvic opening, remove tenderloins, and cut off rear legs at hip joint, if we're saving the backbone, which we usually don't, we then usually saw off the lower end containing pelvis and anus) so we don't have a use for it like someone would in normal field operations. Note that this is in Texas where the weather rarely permits hanging whole carcasses outside.

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Originally posted by Gatogordo:
Normally in our area, the cheapest fine salt supply is farmer's feed suppliers. Locally 50 pounds is about $5 currently. I haven't used the butt out tool but some friends seem to like it. We hang and quarter our deer without removing the anus (field dress like normal, cut colon off as close to anus as possible down in pelvic opening, remove tenderloins, and cut off rear legs at hip joint, if we're saving the backbone, which we usually don't, we then usually saw off the lower end containing pelvis and anus) so we don't have a use for it like someone would in normal field operations. Note that this is in Texas where the weather rarely permits hanging whole carcasses outside.

Good advice here, this is how we always do them

Be very careful buying bulk "feed salt". Most of it contains extraneous minerals for cattle that can and will effect the tanning process. I buy bakers salt in 25 pound bags. It's superfine table salt and only runs about $4 a bag.

I use less than half the salt that Grafton uses. I just did 3 deer capes tonight with a bit less than a pound of salt. Only salt what you can rub into the hide. As oakman says, wet salt is useless waste of salt. I took 10 pounds into the Brooks Range for caribou a couple years back and left about a quarter of it after salting 3 capes. I did resalt it when I got back to the base camp but used less than a pound each for that I'd guess.

The buttout works, but IN MY OPINION, it's just a gimmick that creates it's own problems. I don't use a plastic knife and fork to eat so I don't use a plastic tool to remove the butt. When I field dress an animal, I take my SHARP knife and encircle the anus, pull it rearward and tie a string around the opening. Then I gut it. When I get down to the pelvis, I reach in and pull the gut back into the body cavity. Now I don't get crap all over the inside of my meat and I don't have to carve the anus off my handy dandy plastic gimmick.