A question for the experts...

I have 23 animals from a hunt in Tanzania in Sept/Oct 2002. They have arrived in the States.

I would like your professional opinion whether I should keep them in a salted state or have them all tanned immediately.

In the past I have had them all tanned at once. I am not sure how quickly I will be able to have these mounted due to lead times at my taxidermist and mostly due to finances.

Which is a better (i.e. what lasts longer) way of keeping them. Salted or tanned?

Please advise.

Thank you.

Scott.

Hi Scott,

Having owned a taxidermy business for several years, became certified, wons lots of awards and all that other stuff that is supposed to sound impressive, I will recommend without reservation that you get the hides tanned now.

Keeping the hides salt dried creates too many problems. Mold growth is not unusual. Rodent nibbling is very common. You can wake up to a very humid day and the salted hides will have absorbed moisture from the air and will be soaking wet.

Just tanning them, though, is not enough if you want to get them tanned. A tanned hide has a maximum "shelf life" of about one year. That means that after too long the hide will take a "memory" and after being soaked up to mount will not have the necessary resiliency to form properly to the mannikin.

I would suggest that you get the hides "wet-tanned". It is a process where they are fully tanned but are not put through the final drying and tumbling stage. Your taxidermist should know what this means. Then, package each hide in a separate plastic bag and freeze it.

They will last indefinitely that way.

Good luck!

JDS

Along the same lines. If I salt a deer or caribou hide etc in the field then throw it in the freezer when I get home what is the shelf life? Im talking about still flexible non dried capes.

Scott
JDS is right on! Get them wet tanned and frozen and you will have no problems or hurries to mount them.
I have mine wet tanned in Joburg,South Africa, by Kwiktan and they do a great job. Another plus is that you save about $75 for each cape that way!
Mike
The problem about "freezing a salted cape is....it wont freeze very well and can slip.

[ 04-08-2003, 08:51: Message edited by: bo-n-aro ]

Mike,

Listen to Bo-n-aro. If you freeze a cape, don't salt it. If you are going to salt it, don't freeze it. The salt won't allow the cape to freeze.

Now to clarify, you can't just take a cape or hide and salt it and expect it to be OK. All of the meat and fat needs to be removed from it for the salt to penetrate into the hide. If it is a cape, the lips, eyelids, and ears need to be opened up and cleaned out of all tissue before salting. When salting, you need to use a fine grain salt (not rock salt) that does not contain iodine. The iodine screws with the ph level of the tanning chemicals. Hides are usually salted once and placed on an inclined rack to allow the fluids to drain away from it. After a day or two, the salt needs to be removed and the hide re-salted with fresh salt and allowed to dry.

If you are going to freeze a hide, your enemy is "freezer burn" which is nothing more than dried out spots. To freeze, fold (dont roll) the cape or hide up into as small an area as possible and put into a heavy weight plastic bag. Squeeze as much air out as possible and tie it shut. For insurance, I would put that into a second bag and repeat the process. Two layers of plastic are better than one.

I've tanned hides that have been properly frozen for years. I've had to throw out hides that were improperly frozen for only a few weeks.

Preparation is the key.

Good luck.

JDS

I know they wont freeze well if salted. What I had done was salt it and when I got home about 5 days later I rinsed the salt off with a hose then folded and froze the cape. I forgot about this particular one and it set for 5 years in the freezer. I took it to the taxidermist and told him the whole story. I said I would be willing to buy a cape from him if need be. He called me a week later and said it looked ok and sent it out to be tanned. It came back fine and the mount has been on my wall for a year and a half now with no problem. I was curious to see if I did something right or just got lucky.

Mike, washing the cape before you froze it saved your rear.......or...rather...your cape!