I am starting my first project(squirrel) and need to know what to do with it between sessions. I run a business and very seldom have more than a half hour at a time to work on it. i'm still skinning it. I have been placing it on a tray in the refrigerator when not working on it. Will this hurt anything? Thanks in advance for your help!
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or don't bother. Taxidermy is not like a plastic model project where you work on it as you have time and see it fit. Once you start you need to finish the project. Especially when you are dealing with green hides. You most likely can toss that squirrel. When you skin an animal you need to do it all at once as fast as possible to prevent hairslippage. This occurs when bacteria is starting to eat away on the epidermis. The warmer the temperature the faster the bacteria grow and work. That's why we have so many freezers. You need to check out the forum on proper skin care and how to handle green hides. If you can't find two or three hours in a row on a weekend to do the skinning and fleshing, you chose the wrong hobby and need to stick with plastic models.
well the best thing i can tell ya is to go ahead and skin that one out, will most likely be no good as the previous post mentioned, but is a good learning experience. i am extreamly beginning, and i have been able to tune my skinning skills allready, time is of the essance when working on dead things, but skills are accuired, so finish skinning that one and get another one. till you can skin faster, then you can freeze the skin between working time or slap on some liquid tan for some extra time. my first project was a chipmonk that i did with liquid tan and was over doing it tanning it but it worked good and came out nice. and i learned alot about the process.