I have a bobcat in the freezer from last deer season. It is double wrapped in garbage bags. When I went to thaw the cat to skin I noticed some of the hair was falling out. It's not just falling out in clumps but if you give it a firm pull it will come out. Is this normal for a frozen cat? the cat was frozen shortly after it was killed. I planned on tanning the hide. Do you think I will have problems?
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Hard to say but if your cat is losing hair it could be many reasons. The best thing you should have done was to skin it out that day and flesh and salt it. Personally it's a bad choice to freeze a whole animal and then thaw it. You have to great of a chance of slippage (bacteria growth)due to the thawing part.
I would try stop rot on it before I thaw it out and skin it.
I have put several questionable furbearers into a safety acid pickle for a couple of days before skinning. Keep a watch on the ph to keep it below 2. I've done this on fox, cats and otters and was able to save what I thought were problem hides. I have let some of them thaw in the solution. I just mix enough normal safety acid pickle(ph 1.0) to submerge the whole animal and weight it down with a gallon jug full of water. Don't try to reuse the pickle for normal tanning process.
If the hair is coming out with a "firm pull" stop pulling it. I don't call this slippage, slippage is whole areas of fur coming out with slight rubbing. If you have an animal that you suspect is going bad pouring denatured alcohol on the affected areas will kill bacteria and firm up the skin. Often you can save skins this way especially the ears on bears that are prone to spoilage. Frank is totally correct about not freezing if you can help it. Predators are especially quick to spoil. Enjoy, Aaron H.
yall have helped me alot thanks