I'm in the process of mounting my first squirrel but I'm second guessing what I've read. The situation is that I skinned out the squirrel but when I finished it was late so I washed him and put him in a Ziploc freezer bag for the night. I went to get it out this morning and he had some ice on him. I've read in the archives that you don't want freezer burn. The question is that I'm going to flesh him today but I'm still waiting on my mannikin so what is the proper way to store him for at least a week? Should he go into the freezer completely dry or should I wash him again after fleshing and then put him in? So far I'm pretty happy with how the skinning process went. I appreciate everyone's advice.
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Brad,
You didn't tell us how you intended to treat the hide. Are you tanning it or are you using dry preservative. If you are tanning, it goes into the pickle for a couple of days and then to the freezer. If you're DPing it, I'd suggest that you wait until your mannikin arrives before you continue. Freeze drying is not a short term problem. If it's already too late to wait, just freeze the skin with no other treatments and await the arrival of the form, mount quickly and pose. Try to eliminate the freeze-thaw recycling as much as possible.
George, thanks for the response. I'm sorry I didn't include that I was Dry Preserving it. I plan on eventually learning how to tan but for now I'm using this method. I had already fleshed him out when I got your response. After fleshing I washed him, towel dried, and put preservative on him. Then I placed him in a Ziploc bag and took all the air out and put him in the freezer. Now I'm waiting for the form to get here. Should I be concerned about hair slippage? Thanks again.
....If you got the squirrel skinned out has there isn't much fat on those critter's any way just rub borax into it and freeze it that way or you can rub borax into and allow it to dry.I don't think you are going to run into to much trouble,of course this depends on how long you want to freeze it.I would say if you want it keeped for a long time freeze it?...Lloyd
with dry preserv. "rain rot" sometimes occurs if you freeze critter
without drying well! I usually towel dry and blow dry NO HEAT ,shop
vac on reverse works well expecially on smaller critters.