hey all
I am new at taxidermy and i just recieved a squirrel skin that was skinned and salted and now it is folded stiff. How can i rehydrate the skin without loosing the hair i want to be able to form the skin over the manaquin
Thanx Kevin
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1 pound salt and a gallon of water and some lysol or some bactricide. and let it sit in there stirring ocasionally for about 30 minutes or so and then take it out and put in to plastic baggy and into the fridge for the night, it will good and rehydrated by morning
I advised you to check the SEARCH archive in your previous posting. Instead you got BS answers. Bruce is advising you to use Lysol or some bacteriacide, but don't. Lysol contains nothing to stop bacterial growth and if your hide is fresh salted, the rehydration process isn't going to last long enough to NEED one. The rest of his information is correct but you could have found that out yesterday if you'd taken my original advice.
Kevin, it sounds as if you got a "green salted" hide. You will still have to rehydrate it before you can begin working on it. A salted hide should be tanned. Had it been dry preserved, the rehydration would have allowed you to just go ahead and mount, but introduction to salt is a different character. I'd recommend that, as a beginner, you bought one of the many paint on tans. Most of them can be applied without pickling, but several strongly recommend it. This one is your choice.
In my opinion, you'd have been better off getting a squirrel yourself and skinning it out. Then you could decide if you wanted to DP it or really become involved and actually tan it. That, however, is water past the dam. Once rehydrated, the skin will be very supply. A squirrel is a tough mount, don't kid yourself. In fact, the tail is going to give you problems if you don't get it either tanned or force DP down inside it. Good luck.