Roadkill skins

[fred gordon]

Today whilst drivibg to work I passed several roadkills. A deer, a stoat, a badger and a fox. It struck me that I should be able to save the skins of these and at least salvage something from their deaths. Has anyone ever tried to skin and preserve roadkills like this and what might be the legal implications?

 

[Eric_Methven]

Technically you can preserve then process road kill skins so long as the animal isn't rigid and infested.

I don't know about the legal implications though. I mean, if you see a dead badger, what are you going to use it's skin for? And how do you prove that you didn't hunt the badger then kill it for it's skin.

I've skinned out a roadkill deer before now, but that was at five in the morning near Ullapool. The animal was freshly killed and still floppy although cold to the touch. I would have had the meat too but had nowhere to store it as I was on a camping holiday. I just put the skin in a bin liner, called into the first store I came to and bought five large packets of table salt. I salted the skin and sealed it up in a few bin liners until I got home.

Eric

 

[fred gordon]

Ah, you see Eric, being a Scot there is always the opportunity for a new sporran in a roadkill badger or an otter. Possibly beyond my talent but I thought I wouls ask. I would, of course, require a sporran licence!

 

[w00dsmoke]

Today whilst drivibg to work I passed several roadkills. A deer, a stoat, a badger and a fox. It struck me that I should be able to save the skins of these and at least salvage something from their deaths. Has anyone ever tried to skin and preserve roadkills like this and what might be the legal implications?

Yeagh I kind of grew up with taxidermy in the family, my uncle was a taxidermist for the Scottish Museum and he took me under his wing so to speak as a nipper so I learned a few tricks.

Firstly to be LEGAL and this is IMPORTANT...any protected species that you have on your possesion you have to PROVE that it was legally obtained and to be in your ownership.

So for roadkill badgers for example you really would need to take photo's of it in situ and possibly get corroboration from a vet/police/spca via a letter to show that it was roadkill. If you cannot prove your protected roadkill was legally obtained you are in many cases breaking the law.

Now then to get onto the gory bit, don's use salt, it takes the hairs out and you really don't want that if you want the pelt. Staple gun or peg your pelt/skin onto a board stretched taught. Let it dry. When it is dry scrape all the fat off and bits of grissle and meat with a paint scraper with rounded edges. Remove pelt/hide. Make a solution of water and domestic borax up and soak for 48 hours or so in it. Remove, wring and dry.


Your pelt will be stiff as a board when it dries but it will be safe and won't rot if all the fat and meat has been removed. To soften you should rub the hide back and forward around a clothes pole or smooth trunk for many many hours and keep folding it as it gets softer. You can quicken the pace by rubbing a softner like vaseline or handcream in.

If you want a hide without hairs, soak in a bucket of water with a strong solution of salt for 48hrs to a week, then peg and scrape both sides of the skin and do as above.
It's smelly messy and very unhygenic but the end product is pretty unique. If the hide continues to smell after all that you've not done it right but to a degree can be rectified by rubbing copius amounts of borax in to the skin.

Formaldehyde can be used but is highly poisenous. Pottassium nitrate can be used instead of borax but they may not sell you it at the chemist if you are wearing cammo
but you will need to sign for it.

WS

 

[fred gordon]

w00dsmoke, Many thanks I appreciate the information. Any tips on how to tackle the skull/brains etc? I will also have a word with my local vet and see what he says about providing a letter.

 

[w00dsmoke]

w00dsmoke, Many thanks I appreciate the information. Any tips on how to tackle the skull/brains etc? I will also have a word with my local vet and see what he says about providing a letter.

Yup Fred, what exactly would you like to know? This is the easiest way to preserve skins but there are many many other ways to do it from using seriously nasty chrome solutions to using brains and smoke etc...

Is it info on how to preserve the skulls and get rid of the brains?

 

[xylaria]

There is more than one way to skin a cat/badger/deer/fox/rabbit. Hair shedding is normally to do with bacterial spoilage or scraping too much of the papery inner off, not the method. Prompt drying is the most important thing not any paticular method. Salting skins by rubbing dry salt in as soon as possible is one of the oldest method of drying skins along with smoking. Any fat on the hide has to removed early in drying process as this causes spoilage and retards drying. Scraping is done when the pelt is dry this removes remaining salt and the papery stuff which softens the pelt.

 

[fred gordon]

I'm primarily interested in preserving the skins, not the skulls etc. Not geared up to use 'nasty' chemicals but I'm looking for a simple method, if one is available.

 

[w00dsmoke]

I'm primarily interested in preserving the skins, not the skulls etc. Not geared up to use 'nasty' chemicals but I'm looking for a simple method, if one is available.

In terms of tackling the skulls and brains (the brains can be used instead of borax and rubbed in and then the skin can be smoked over a fire...this is the traditional native way), it depends how you want the skin? Head (mask) on or off? Esssentially when skinning, you will have to cut through the bones at the feet and sometimes tail if it won't slide off, then as you skin the beast, fold the skin over the animals head, and gently pull while using the knife to cut the skin away from the flesh. Doing this should enable you to remove the complete skin from the head however, you will need to cut it around the inside of the mouth.

Some tips-

If you are in a hurry you can use sandpaper to scrape the dry skin (even using a sanding machine for speed if its a heavy skin like deer... )

I hope this helps Fred. I'd be glad to show you some day.

 

[fred gordon]

w00dsmoke. Thanks for the tips. It would be interesting to see how its done sometime as its always much better to see things done than read about them.

 

[Eric_Methven]

If you are doing a deer, and decide to remove the hair (say for rawhide or buckskin), once slackened (with ash or caustic soda), a power washer doesn't half remove it quickly. It's a lot easier than scraping. Of course if you want true buckskin you'll have to scrape off the epidermus.

Eric

 

[Biddlesby]

Now then to get onto the gory bit, don's use salt, it takes the hairs out and you really don't want that if you want the pelt. Staple gun or peg your pelt/skin onto a board stretched taught. Let it dry. When it is dry scrape all the fat off and bits of grissle and meat with a paint scraper with rounded edges. Remove pelt/hide. Make a solution of water and domestic borax up and soak for 48 hours or so in it. Remove, wring and dry.

That's interesting, when I tried my first skin I first scraped off the fat, then salted it and let it dry. (a) the fat, veins etc was hard to scrape off and I didn't quite know when to stop so ripped it quite a bit (it was thin rabbit skin anyway); and I did find the hairs fell out a bit but I presumed this was normal and didn't attribute it to the salt. Is it much easier to scrape when dry?

 

[w00dsmoke]

That's interesting, when I tried my first skin I first scraped off the fat, then salted it and let it dry. (a) the fat, veins etc was hard to scrape off and I didn't quite know when to stop so ripped it quite a bit (it was thin rabbit skin anyway); and I did find the hairs fell out a bit but I presumed this was normal and didn't attribute it to the salt. Is it much easier to scrape when dry?

Yes very much easier when it is taught and dry. I've done lots of rabbit skins in the past to make furry welly boot liners and they are thin skinned however they were all done with sandpaper

 

[xylaria]

I have done just finished drying four rabbit skins. I got them home on a sunday evening so couldn't use a chemical method as I couldn't purchase them time, so i laid them out flat and salted them. The next day I removed that layer of salt and gently removed what ever soft fat I could find. I then re-salted. The next day I scraped off the salt gently and then re-salted. I did this for the next two days (so 4 days of salting and resalting).

When the skins were completely dry I scraped of the papery inner very gently with mussel shells. I put holes in youngest looking bunny skin. The fattiest skin still had a slight aroma after a week so I completely dried using a mugwort smoke fire. I found if i kept sniffing the hides I could detect if they weren't dry properly in places and pay extra attention to those areas.

It is first time i have ever done skins but they are holding their hair, and don't smell in anyway. I got this method off an old post by paganwolf:notworthy , and i am really glad of it as there are many methods and it can be confusing. This one won out as it is based on what I had in my cupboard at the time. It is simple and it worked, I don't know if it would work with a thicker animal, but i am no expert. But there are alot of differant methods and some things can only be learned by experience.

My next step is tanning the hide with stewed oak.

This website has a mass a information on natural methods, and really good tips like use hairdryer when the wife is not in the house.
http://www.braintan.com/articles/index.htm

 

[Exbomz]

This might be of some use?

http://hunting.ndenz.com/How to skin and tan.html