Thread: Help needed: tahr skin processing

On the way back from a hunt with my first bull tahr skin in the boot. Tomorrow I’ll cut all the hair excess fat and meat off it then what’s next?

I don’t have much freezer space but heard you can salt the skin, roll it up and put it in a bucket to remove some of the moisture. Then salt it again and it’s good until the tannery can take it?

Any help is appreciated, rookie to the tanning game. Think I did an an alright job of skinning it on the hill

get it to taxidermist/tannery ASAP... if nothing else hang it hair side down in garage over line with salt on it ..I hope like hell you have let it cool properly before bunging it in your pack to get it home..hairslip is heartbreaking after big effort to get one home.

Put it in a mates freezer ASAP you want this trophy skin too last a life time,get it tanned professionaly it will be worth it.Roll it up with all the flesh on the inside of the pelt.

If you want to finish working on it tomorrow, salt over night like Micky says. On a board on slight angle will help excess moisture drain away. Remove the salt before freezing.

Or just get it straight into freezer and get it to a taxidermist frozen as Dundee says.

Have you caped out the head yet?

Salt the wet skin thoroughly, lay it out on the floor and pour 2 or more kg of PLAIN salt over it and rub it in all over, right out to the edges so they stop rolling up. Fold it skin to skin and then fold all the legs etc in so you have a long neatly folded skin about 40-50cm wide. Then roll it up and make sure you tuck in any exposed skin when you get close to the end. Tie it up like a parcel with parachute cord and hang it outside, out of the sunlight, for a week. Or alternatively pack it neatly in a pillow case to hang it. It cant be a bucket or plastic bag cos it needs to drain. Then in a weeks time, unroll it, shake of any excess salt and resalt it as the first time. Roll it up and hang it up out of the way for a year or more if needed. Can be shipped to the likes of Black Stag Tannery or your local taxidermist after its had its second salting. No need to freeze it after its been salted properly cos the salt stops it freezing.
And be very careful freezing a green skin, they are so bloody thick and insulated that there will be parts that dont freeze before they have vthe chance to go off and you may find that when you get it out of the freezer and unroll it, you will have the hair come off in the odd place - not a good look!
Any doubts at all, consult your taxidermist or tannery as soon as possible, like today.

Cheers guys, trimmed excess shit off this morning and managed to squeeze in the freezer for one night then off to taxidermist tomorrow. Hope it goes alright

Well done on securing a mountain giant, the skins are a trophy unto themselves and by no easy feat carrying them out of the hills as they easily weigh 15 kg!

Typically with skins i just keep them cool until I get them home where there rolled up and put in the freezer.

My skins have always gone to Bob Spain in the Hawkes Bay who does a cracker job, I just put the frozen skin into a plastic rubbish bag and then a paper rubbish bag and send by post on a Monday so they get to him on Wednesday where he does the rest... a few months later its returned by mail.

Now you have the processing taken care of I can recommend Turners Tannery in Leeston for the tanning.

They do superb work.

Days gone by every province had their own tannery.....not so much now.

@jpurdon - what is the outcome? Did you manage to avoid the dreaded hair slip?

Originally Posted by XR500

Days gone by every province had their own tannery.....not so much now.

@XR500 When I was a young fulla in the mid-1970s I used to go eeling in the Patea River at the back of our farm. We are about 10 mins out of town (Stratford), and often the entire river used to flow red, blue, green etc depending on what coloured dye the Stratford Tannery (about 10kms away) had finished colouring their tanned sheepskins with and poured into the Kahouri Stream that flowed into the river... Also; the river had a waterfall that was only about a metre high going into a big calm pool. Often the entire pool was covered in suds and foam (over a metre high) from when they poured their used hide washing detergents into the river....

Industrial tanning is a filthy business. Here's an interesting historical article worth a read if only for the list of chemicals.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/ne...e&snippet=true

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

@jpurdon - what is the outcome? Did you manage to avoid the dreaded hair slip?

@Bol Tackshin dropped it off the next day at a chiller in Burnham to go and get done at https://animalskintanningservices.co.nz/ based down in Invercargill. My mate had taken his there so did the same

Originally Posted by Bol Tackshin

Industrial tanning is a filthy business. Here's an interesting historical article worth a read if only for the list of chemicals.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/ne...e&snippet=true

It certainly is. And the (cheap) disposal of the tanning solutions post tanning is now why only a small number of less environmentally friendly countries produce the vast majority of the world's leather. We tried to source traditionally tanned leather (vegetable tannin based) but the cost went through the roof, as its a 3-6 month process for thick saddlery hides, vs a week or less for the more acidic solutions.