I've spent the last hour reading in the archives about velvet antlers but I still have some unanswered questions. I am getting a velvet racked whitetail that was killed last season and has been frozen for a year. I haven't seen the rack to get a feel for how far along the velvet drying had gone before the buck was killed. I have antler tan and Cav-Dry in the shop but I'm inclined to send the rack out for freeze drying. What cautions do I need to take in caping out this deer. I know velvet won't stand being handled much. Will it be effected during the thaw process? How should the rack be packaged to send to a freeze dryer? Who has had experience with companies that do velvet rack drying? Any recommendations? I'm going to go thru my Breakthrough collection (starting at issue 13) to find any info that might not have been covered in the search. Thanks.
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Most folks will probably recommend freeze drying the rack as soon as possible. I would look for any freezer burn on the velvet...freeze drying is different than putting it in the freezer for a year.
If the velvet isn't damaged, I believe freeze dring will give you the most natural look.
.....Do something to "bug proof" the velvet, other than just freeze drying....BUGS will eventually get it. If it's just velvet on hard antler the freeze drying isn't necessary. If the antlers are soft they really need the freeze drying. BOTH cases need "bug proofing"!
Velvet is a lot tougher than you might think, but because of the rich supply of blood, it can spoil very quickly. That will cause the slipping of the velvet. However, that's already out of your hands. It depends on how quickly the hunter took care of that rack last year before he put it in the freezer.
The critical question to start will be, what month or stage of velvet is the deer in? That has a lot to do with what your options are.
today when the customer brought it in. The rack is essentially hard and there are some spots where the velvet is peeling away. There is still a bloody appearance to the exposed areas. Just from what I have read it seems that they are probably past the need for freeze drying. I did let the customer know that there would be no guarantee on the velvet and he was OK with that. The deer is a beautiful basket racked 9 pointer with full summer coat. It should make a really nice piece.
they will need some sort of bugproofing regardless of the method you choose. They are prime food for carpet beetles.