Every once in awhile I shoot an exceptional well furred Coyote. Should I skin them cased or split down the belly to have them tanned?
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Every once in awhile I shoot an exceptional well furred Coyote. Should I skin them cased or split down the belly to have them tanned?
It all depending on what you plan on doing with it after .
I'd use it to throw over the back of the couch
This ^^^ If you plan on having the hide done by a furrier, I would call them to find out how they prefer it be sent to them. Otherwise if you are doing it, however it suits you go for it. My experince is, flesh; scrape; dry loosely on a wood stretcher; then start the tanning process. Tanned open or cased is up to you.
Do you think the people who run the tanning company care how I skin it?
I sent a coyote skin to be tanned, through a trapper, and I was surprised when it was returned to me. It was cased, not split as I had expected. No mention of that was made. I had planned to mount it on a frame, for display. Now it just sits on a shelf.
I found out what not to do with a fresh hide one time.
Years ago, I had a girlfriend who had a 13-14 year old son.
She was some sort of fancy executive and he was all into Boy Scouts.
I'd come in from deer hunting and had a couple of their shirts I was going to soak in lime water,
knock the fur off and make rawhide cheewies for the dogs.
Her son was asking if he could use one for some sort of Merit Badge project.
I was all for it, and when he asked about the old/primitive tanning process,
I told him since he was too young to have a squaw-- he'd need to get his Mom to chew it.
He was all excited, ran inside to tell her,,,,,,,,,,,
Oh boy,,, When she came out of the house-----
You just think you've seen 'mad' when you kick a big fire ant mound!
That ain't nothing compared when she came charging outside.......
I case skinned a Bobcat I killed with a Self made flat bow that I made from a split of a Pignut hickory I cut on the farm,made the Hickory arrows from small splits from the same tree.
One I killed the small, bout 15 Pound bobcat I case skinned the bobcat scraped and cleaned the hide and covered it in regular table salt and repeated this process over a couple of weeks.
Then sewed up his mouth and arrow holes made another bowstring and tied to the rear and front legs and made an indian style quiver and carried my arrows in the quiver.
he young spotted bobcat maded a very pretty quive and I still have it to this day and has not lost a bit of hair yet,that was about36 years ago/
Also he had some real pretty meat and a friend of mine had just bought a new smoker so we slow cooked the meat for about 3 hours and made sandwiches from it.
They were delicious and we called them Bobcat Burger's !!
just feild dress and let the taxidermist take care of it. The tail especially is tricky to skin out. I screwed up a nice red fox once.
If you case it out, it will be easier to stretch and dry on a regular coyote stretcher before you send it. Unless they accept them fresh or frozen.
By the way, I'd be interested in where you're sending it. How much moola and such. I've got several I'm interested in having done. jd
If you send it to a taxidermist . Check with them how they want the animal before you do anything. As for to skin out the tails . Take a 3/4 " thick block about 2"x 4" and in the center drill a 1/2" hole and then lenghtwise cut it in half. Then you can use a heavy rubber band and wrap it around one end . so it will act like a hinge and also will stay close . The when you skin the animals you come to the tail just skin about 2 to 3" and put the block on it with the tail bone in the hole of the block. The start to pull the bone out and work it off once it starts to pull the rest will come easy . Then after take a sharp knife with a point and slit the under side of the tail open to the tip. It dose take some getting use to and if you do a smaller animal then a coon or skunk . make a block with a hole about 3/8" or smaller depending on the size of the tail bone of the animal you are skinning. This is what works for me .
So I guess it's cased, makes the most sense to dry and handle.