Valley Fur Shed

yup, it works exactly the same! i mentioned that in the doc precisely because it remains a very prevalent myth that you can't use iodized salt in tanning, but it's just that: a total myth. i've heard all sorts of things like it'll cause the fur to slip, or the tan just won't work, or it'll turn the skin blue (?? what). but for nearly all of the several hundred hides i've tanned, i've used iodized salt since it's just the cheapest bulk salt i can get locally, so by now i think it's pretty safe to say that it's fine lol. the myth was already thoroughly debunked like 15 years ago on taxidermy.net by chemists and professionals including the creator of Rittels tanning products, but it stubbornly persists because of course no one's gonna try using iodized salt and see that it's fine if someone told them it'll ruin their hide. they'll just pass along the warning.

technically, iodine does react with some tanning agents, so that's probably where the idea that iodized salt can't be used in tanning came from i guess. however, in practice, the amount that's present in table salt is so miniscule (only 60 grams of iodine are added per TON of salt), it's not going to have any effect on the tanning process at all. it's like someone reading that almonds contain cyanide and then telling everyone that almonds are poisonous and eating one will kill you because cyanide is deadly. while it is true that cyanide is deadly in certain amounts, it's totally harmless in the trace amounts present in almonds.

go for it!! you may not skin the face and feet out perfectly the first time, i sure didn't, but if you're careful and take your time it's pretty unlikely that you'll totally ruin them. those parts are indeed a little more tricky to skin than the rest of the body but i wouldn't say they're super difficult in general. once you've done a few sets of heads and feet and learn the basic principles, it comes as naturally as the rest.

go slow, keep tension on the skin, and keep your cuts close to the bone. i have a skinning tutorial here that covers skinning the head and paws, and another tutorial here on skinning squirrel paws with more tips on handling those smaller, longer toes. also have a video here skinning out mink toes. i will say opossum toes are some of the more difficult ones, i still have a bit of trouble with them sometimes myself because they need a lot of force to pull the skin down which can lead to tearing if you're not super careful. and the final joint where you separate the claw from the rest of the toe at the end isn't as obvious as with other animals. usually what i do is, when i know i'm reaching that last joint, i'll take my little pliers and grip that last toe bone as close to the joint as i can, holding the end of the toe/claw firmly with my other hand, and twist it off rather than trying to cut in between the joint. that said, if you find yourself struggling with the toes, you don't have to skin them out all the way down to the claw. opossum feet are small enough that they'll preserve just fine if you leave the toe bones in. you just want to make sure you skin down the palm, to at least the first joint of the toes, so that you can flesh out the fatty foot pads.

as for the face, i have a tutorial for face prep here, and a video here. for opossums, don't worry about turning the ears all the way out to the edge, just go far enough that you can flesh off the excess tissue on the base of the ear. the face is a bit more difficult to flesh since you can't just scrape the tissue off like you can on the body, you need to slice it away with a sharp blade, but most of it can be done after pickling so you can really take your time. here is a tutorial by stardusttaxidermy that shows fleshing the face with a scalpel. i personally find a skife to be super helpful when cleaning up the face, but it does take some getting used to. whatever tool you use, it helps to keep your fingers of your other hand on the fur side, pressing up against the spot you're fleshing so you can better feel how much pressure you're applying with the blade and reduce the chances of going too deep and cutting a hole.

if you have your heart set on this opossum turning out perfect, i'd say keep him in the freezer while you practice with other animals you're not as attached to until you feel confident. but i don't think you will totally ruin him if you give it a shot; holes can be sewn, and if you're not going to mount him then it's no big deal if the face isn't perfect taxidermy quality. honestly i think he'll give you more trouble when it comes to degreasing than skinning his head and feet lol, at least that's how it was for me. good luck!

the only difference between a wet tan and dry tan is that a wet tan doesn't go through the drying and breaking/softening process. up until then the process and products used are exactly the same, but for a wet tan you just freeze the hide after tanning+oiling to keep the leather wet instead of drying it. you also don't need to use as much softening oil for a wet tan since you don't need to worry about getting soft leather, you only need enough oil to prevent the leather from cracking or shrinking too much as the mount dries.

the advantage of a wet tan for traditional taxidermy* is that you don't have to rehydrate the hide before mounting, just thaw it and it's ready to go. rehydrating isn't difficult but if you're a full time taxidermist the extra time adds up, and if you're tanning it yourself you save a lot of time and effort not having to break the leather. the hide also has more longevity when stored wet in the freezer, you don't have to worry about it potentially degrading in storage, so that's the way to go if it'll be a long time before it gets mounted. you also save a bit of money on tanning fees and generally have a shorter turnaround time when sending a hide to a tanner for wet tanning vs. dry.

*don't use a wet tan for soft mount taxidermy. for soft mounting you only want the parts that will be traditionally mounted, like the head and paws, to be wet/rehydrated while mounting. the rest of the body is mounted while the leather is already dried and softened. if you mount while the whole pelt is wet, it'll dry stiff and/or crinkly since you can't break/soften the leather as it dries.

is the tanning solution you got this stuff by chance? if so, i would highly recommend returning it if you still can, it's poor quality and the instructions it gives will not result in a properly tanned pelt, for reasons i've discussed here.

my recommendation is to get high quality synthetic tanning products instead. the best brands IMO are rittels and trubond. i mainly use rittels myself but generally i say trubond is better for beginners just because i find they have a bit more clear/thorough instructions, but the products themselves are both good. here are the full instructions for tanning with rittels, and here for trubond. i've also detailed my own tanning process here that has some visuals throughout, and in that post i've also linked my tags for more tanning info.

those products are a higher investment up front, and the process with them can look intimidating compared to what the orange bottle says, but the higher quality stuff will set you up for far more success. it's especially important to follow proper prep+tanning procedures and use quality products on fatty/greasy critters like rats because the tanning agent will not work if any grease remains in the skin, and that grease will eventually cause the hide to become weak and fall apart. lean animals like are deer more easy to preserve, they'll still look ok hold up fine even if not technically tanned properly, so that's why you often see good reviews for those poorer quality products. it's possible to get an ok pelt with it if you do the additional pickling and degreasing steps, but that still requires investing in those supplies, and the leather likely still won't be as soft as you can get it with the good stuff or have as much longevity.

i hope that helps!

F&Tpost has B grade beams that are pretty cheap, that's where i got mine (the 5x46 one for $22.95) and it's lasted me years. shipping was under $15 so in total it was around $35-40. you would have to build a base for it though so that's not including any wood you might have to buy for that if you don't have any lying around, but you don't need much and any cheap 2x4 will do. or you can even get away with using it without a base, just bracing it between your body and a wall. i used it like that at first, it works ok doing a couple hides here and there, but it's definitely not ideal if you're fleshing regularly (it hurts after a while lol)

another option is to make your own beam, either out of hardwood or PVC pipe, but whether that's more affordable or not depends on if you already have the tools to do it and a source for the wood or pipe. here is a video on different options for fleshing beams and what you want in a beam, and there are a lot of videos on youtube showing how to make different styles of beam if you search 'how to make a fleshing beam'

just finished writing up my tanning process! it's not necessarily a tutorial, i would have to write a book for that haha, but it's a detailed explanation of how i personally do things to get the results that i do. hopefully it's helpful!

this is probably a good place to also link the tags i have for some of these steps which have some more information on them that i've posted here

all general tanning/vulture culture info

skinning

fleshing

prepping

salting

pickling

shaving

degreasing

oiling

breaking

this is how i personally do it:

after the animal is skinned, i carefully slice away as much meat/flesh off the bone as i can. for the skull this includes removing the eyeballs and tongue, and for a whole carcass it includes removing all organs. then i place them in a ziplock bag (left partially open), fill with it water, and put that in a bucket of water heated to around 90F with an aquarium heater to macerate. i'll check it in a week or two, at which point the flesh is usually finished rotting away depending on the size of the bones/skull and how much flesh i left on. then i pour the bag of bones and putrid flesh soup through a fine mesh sieve to catch all the bones, give them a good rinse, then scrub them with a toothbrush and dish soap.

from there they're ready to degrease, which i do with ammonia in a tightly covered plastic container. you can also do it with dish soap and water heated to 115F if you don't want to deal with ammonia or can't get any, but i personally find ammonia works better and you don't even have to heat it. i use janitorial strength 10% ammonia, 1 cup per gallon of water. depending on how dense and greasy the bones are, it can take anywhere from 2 weeks to a year to fully degrease. usually i make a fresh degrease bath every month, repeating until it remains clear. but if i already know roughly how long a certain species takes to degrease, i just leave it for that amount of time and only change out the degrease bath once at the end to ensure it stays clear.

when they're ready to come out of degreasing, i rinse the bones, scrub them again if needed, and soak them in plain water overnight to make sure there's no ammonia left in them, take them out, then let them dry. if i like the color as is, then i consider them done. if there's any discoloration or i just want them whiter, i whiten with peroxide. they soak in plain 3% drugstore peroxide, usually in a ziplock bag floated in a bucket of water if it's just one skull or something since you don't have to use as much peroxide to fill a container that way. but if i have a lot of skulls/bones then i'll just soak them all in a plastic bucket/container. depending on how white i want them, they soak either for just a couple hours or overnight.

once they're whitened i rinse them off, let them dry, and if there's any grave wax (white powdery stuff) left on them, i use a toothbrush and compressed air duster to clean it off. all done!

you can find more thorough bone cleaning tutorials by OddArticulations here: maceration, degreasing, whitening

ugh i hate tanning rabbits for this reason. they tend to have a tough membrane that reeeally clings on, but the skin underneath is thin and delicate, especially on the rear end- around the tail is like tissue paper. so the force required to pull off the membrane will often tear the skin underneath, and wild rabbits like cottontails are even worse than domestics. it's tricky, but you can definitely soft tan cottontails if you're careful.

wait until the hide has pickled before you try to remove the membrane. the skin will be stronger when it's pickled than when it's completely raw. as tempting as it is to peel that membrane off with your fingers, with rabbits i've found i have better luck slicing it away rather than peeling. it's more tedious, but you're less likely to make tears. hold some tension on the membrane with one hand, so you can see where it connects to the hide, while you use a scalpel with the other hand to slice between the membrane and hide. also, with cottontails, since they're a lot more lean than domestics you could even get away with leaving some of the membrane on the super thin parts like around the tail for some extra stability. generally i recommend removing as much membrane as possible for proper degreasing and softening, but this is a case where you might be better off leaving some of it on. just make sure you're removing any and all fat or meat in that area.

as far as tanning for soft mounts, i recommend using a synthetic tan such as rittels or trubond. here is instructions for rittels, and here for trubond. to prevent the hide from stiffening up after tanning, you need to "break" the leather as it dries by stretching it, staking it (dragging it back and forth across an edge like a wooden board or axe head), crumpling it around in your hands over and over, and sanding it after its dry. i have more info on that process in my breaking tag (and you can find all general tanning tips and information i've posted in my info tag).

for delicate critters in particular like rabbits, you'll need to be very mindful of how much tension you're using as you stretch the leather so you don't tear it. it's especially important in these cases to not let it dry too much before you stretch it since you'll need to use more force to break the leather the drier it is and it's far more likely to tear. keep a very close eye on it as it dries, and if you find that a certain area has stiffened up before you've gotten a chance to stretch it, dampen the skin again with a sponge to rehydrate it and try again. often with very thin, delicate skins i focus more on crumpling them than stretching them to reduce the likelihood of tearing (but they do still need some stretching in the beginning)

scraping fat/grease out of a shaved cat hide. doing this before the degrease bath helps significantly in fully degreasing the hide, which is essential for the tan to work properly. you’d be surprised how much fat can be lurking within a perfectly clean looking skin!

(apologies for the very delayed response, but i wanted to answer in case you or others could still get something out of it)

that orange bottle tanning solution ("deer hunter & trapper's hide tanning formula") is awful both as a product and for the directions it gives, and i strongly advise against using it. based on my and others' experiences with it, i'm not convinced it actually is a tanning agent at all. it's what i started out using as many folks do since it's so readily available and makes the process seem easy, but the results were never good. when i got more experience and went back to rework some of the pelts i used it on- because they always turned out stiff- upon rehydration they started shedding like crazy and when i began thinning them down some, the skin under the surface was reddish and raw- not tanned. most were squirrels so it wasn't a case of them being too greasy or thick skinned for the tan to have worked properly, i followed the instructions exactly and it just did not actually tan them. i've heard similar issues and more countless times from others who have used that orange bottle stuff.

but even if it was a decent tanning agent, the directions it gives you will not result in a proper tan regardless. one of the main issues, as your question implies, is the lack of a pickling step. after the salting stage it tells you to soak the hide in salt water for a few minutes to several hours- presumably the rehydration step- and then thin down the skin. it's pretty much asking for slippage here, instructing you to take a wet, raw skin and spend time trying to thin in down. raw/unpickled skins are very difficult to actually shave down even with a fleshing machine, and you're really not going to be able to be thorough enough on most critters in the timeframe you'd need to be done with it before it begins to slip (especially as a beginner and with no fancy equipment). pickling is a crucial step in the tanning process not only because it breaks down untannable proteins within the skin to prepare it for tanning, but it also toughens up the skin/changes the texture to allow you to shave it much more easily, as well as preserves and stabilizes it so you can spend as much time as you need to on shaving it.

the next major issue with the directions is the lack of a proper degreasing step. fully and completely degreasing the skin is imperative for any tanning agent to work, so you really need to get it right, but the orange bottle does not tell you how. what it tells you to do is wash the hide with dish soap, or if it's a very greasy skin like raccoon or bear, wash it twice. problem is, you could wash a raccoon ten times with dish soap and it's not going to fully degrease that thing- especially if you could only do a rushed shaving job because the instructions put you in a race against time trying to shave a raw skin before it spoils. very lean critters like squirrel or deer can be fine with just a wash in dish soap, but for most furbearers like coyote, fox, mink, opossum, raccoon, etc, that won't cut it. in order to get degreased properly these animals need to be thoroughly shaved, and soaked in a solvent-based taxidermy degreaser. as a surfactant, dish soap is just not effective in dissolving the grease deep within the skin.

you can get a decently preserved pelt with the orange bottle stuff if you follow the proper tanning procedure instead of its instructions (flesh, salt, rehydrate, pickle, shave, degrease, neutralize, apply tan). but at that point if you're already buying the extra supplies to do that you might as well just get the trubond tanning kit instead, which has a very high quality tanning formula and much better instructions. the orange bottle formula itself just not good even when used right. i reworked a squirrel i 'tanned' with the orange bottle by just oiling it with trubond 1000B and the difference in how soft it turned out was night and day. even on its own without the proper tanning process, the trubond worked so much better. i stopped using the orange bottle and never looked back. even with my very limited experience level when i switched, my pelts immediately began turning out SO much better when i used trubond and followed their instructions.

i'm sorry i couldn't help with your bobcat in time! if you happen to see this i would be very curious to know how it turned out

the sawdust isn't a cause for concern thankfully; it is used during fleshing sometimes but it's also used during the tumbling/breaking process at commercial tanneries. the pelts are tumbled with sawdust to absorb any excess oils in the fur and leather, and it also provides more weight to tumble against the pelts which helps break the leather. sometimes they don't do a great job getting all the sawdust out afterward, especially in the nooks and crannies like the ears and paws. i've seen it get matted into the fur too. but it should be totally clean and sanitary, all you'd need to do is brush/blow it out

it sounds like the pelt may have been dry tanned for taxidermy rather than garment tanned, which is why the face is shaved cleanly but the leather isn't super supple (or it’s just a not-so-great garment tan). i've seen taxidermy tanned pelts have the legs left inverted inside the body often, i think some tanneries just don't bother flipping them back out since if it's tanned for taxidermy, the taxidermist is going to rehydrate the pelt and flip them back out anyway- they're not tanned with display as wallhanger in mind. or if it is a garment tan, the legs aren’t used for garments so they’re an afterthought at the tannery. if the relief cuts on the legs are short- which they often are if skinned for taxidermy to save on sewing time- it can be really annoying to flip the legs rightside out, especially once the leather is dry and is not quite as stretchy and flexible anymore. that's why i always make my relief cuts nearly down to the elbow; i don't wanna be spending 10 minutes wiggling the legs in and out every time i need to flip them lol (sorry taxidermists)

so yeah the excess sawdust and inverted legs are basically just symptoms of mass-production commercial tanning, nothing to worry about. it sounds like a decent quality hide that just didn’t get those hands-on finishing touches

the skin is ready to begin breaking once it's begun to darken in color and feels fairly dry to the touch. it should still be flexible, don't wait until it's stiff or crinkly, and don't wait until the entire skin has darkened; different spots will dry at different rates so just keep an eye on it and stretch the areas that have dried as you notice them. here and here are clips of me breaking leather to give you an idea of what the skin looks like when it's ready to begin breaking. depending on the thickness of the skin and color of the fur, the hide will start to turn either a blue-greyish or yellow color when it's ready to begin breaking. in the first clip you can see both, depending on where the guinea pig had black fur and white fur. i also have a breaking tag with some more info on the process.

whoops 😂 well, at least now you know! it would be chaos over here if i couldn't reuse the pickle. i maintain a big pickling tub that at least a couple dozen pelts cycle through before i replace it with a fresh solution every 3 or so months, once it gets too murky. as long as you maintain the pH between 1 to 2.5 and salinity at 40% or above, and keep it clean by washing pelts before they go in, a pickling solution can last a very very long time. theoretically it could last forever if it never got dirty, but eventually there will always be too much skin gunk dissolved in it once enough hides go through it

yeah you do want to give the fur a rinse after degreasing just to keep your pickle clean so it stays as effective as possible for as long as possible. no need to do a full on shampooing or anything though, i just dunk the pelt- fur side out- into some fresh water and agitate it a bit to rinse to off, then squeeze out as much of the excess water as i can before returning it to the pickle. keep an eye on the pH of the pickle afterward, sometimes the water brought in along with the fur will dilute it a bit and you'll need to add a bit of acid. (when rinsing the pelt after degreasing you may notice the skin change texture and color a bit, but don't worry. it's acid swell, which happens when an acidic skin comes in contact with the neutral water without a buffer (salt). it'll go back to normal after it's back in the pickle)

i wish 😩 shit's expensive. but nah, the degrease bath can't really be reused. it's just not going to be effective enough, being so saturated with dissolved grease as well as being cold. you're also at risk of having bacterial growth in a dirty degrease bath that's just sitting around

(apologies for the very late response, not sure if it'll still be helpful but i wanted to answer anyway just in case you or others can still get something out of it)

as far as i know, there are no common household products that are effective for oiling a tanned pelt. things like neatsfoot oil and mink oil are often recommended since they're readily available, however they are not effective at softening leather, they can only condition the surface of the leather. oils need to be specifically treated (sulfated or bisulfited) in order to fully absorb into the leather and bind to the fibers, providing the lubrication needed to aid in pliability. otherwise, the oil mostly just sits on top of the leather, which provides a protective coating for leather goods like boots, saddles, etc, but does not make the leather more supple. i've tested this myself with neatsfoot oil; i had some leather scraps trimmed off coyote paw keychains i was making so i oiled one piece with neatsfoot and another with rittel's proplus. the one with neatsfoot oil was noticeably more stiff and oily to the touch, while the one with proplus was more supple and dry to the touch. so i can only recommend using oils specifically formulated for softening tanned pelts such as rittel's proplus or trubond's lubristretch.

that said, there are natural fat liquors (aka softening oils) such as egg yolk and brains, which have proteins that allow it to bind to the fibers of the skin and make it supple. however i'm not personally familiar with these methods, and i don't know how well those would work on a tanned pelt. in traditional tanning methods these fat liquors are applied when the hide is still technically raw- after it’s all fleshed and scraped and then rehydrated, the fat liquor is applied and the hide is dried and broken, then tanned with smoke. i don't know enough about these methods to say whether they still bind effectively if the hide is already tanned, so i can't personally recommend using egg or brain on a tanned hide

it is possible to wash a pelt before salting without issues, as long as the fur is dried well before you salt it and leave it to dry, but i personally don't recommend introducing any moisture to a pelt if you can help it. excess moisture encourages bacterial activity, as well as all the extra time and handling of the raw skin, which can lead to slipping. a nice fresh skin can be ok with a wash but i don't find it worth the risk if it's not totally necessary. as a general rule, you want to get the pelt to a stable state (salt dried, pickled, etc) as quickly as you possibly can, while keeping it as dry and cool as you can. if there's blood, urine, mud, or other nastiness in the fur, i find it better to spot clean it as best you can with paper towels before salting rather than fully washing the pelt. you can then give it a full wash with soap and cold water after rehydrating, right before it goes into the pickle.

you need to flesh the hide before salt drying, to ensure the salt can get into the skin underneath the fat and meat, otherwise it won't be able to preserve the skin and it might slip. if salt on the hide is making it easier to flesh you can definitely rub some salt on it right before or while you flesh it, just don't leave it out for a while or anything before you begin fleshing. and avoid using borax on a raw skin; borax has a high pH and it can spike the pH of your pickle. sawdust and corn meal are some other safe options to give you more grip and aid in fleshing