Fur "cleaning" question

B

Bradsbirds

Member
I'm currently putting up some coyotes from this year. I originally skinned them and then froze the hides. Am now thawing and then scraping/salting/drying them to eventually send off to a tannery for "wall-hangers" (not taking them to auction/fur buyer etc...) I have been combing them to remove burrs, etc... but have not washed any to remove blood on the hair. I scrape, sew holes, salt and hang to dry inside out. My question is if it's necessary to clean the dried blood off the hair prior to doing all this or will it OK once dry and the tanning will clean everything up?
 
If your sending the to a tannery you don't have to clean the fur at all other than to get the burrs out of them, just flesh and stretch. The tanning baths will clean them up. I just stretch and dry them and not bother with salting them either. In fact I don't even turn mine going to the tannery anymore and leave the fur side in.

A couple seasons ago I was living out of an RV park and had no where to work on hides. I fleshed them on a portable beam, put them on a wire stretcher and just hung them up in the trees out where I was hunting. After a few days pick them up and box them to go to the tannery, they turned out great. I was down in NM so it was dry there.

Now if your sending them to auction they need to be cleaned. They buy by how they look before processing.
 
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