i recently got a fox from some guy that he had just shot like an hour before, and i took it and skinned it but i didnt remove the legs or turn anthing, i then froze it, when i took it out of the freezer i removed the tail legs and turned the ears, i notices that some of the hair was what i thought slipping i dont know if fox hair sheds easily, but i thought i would through it in the pickle to stop the slippage and figure out what to do. i has been less than 24 hours and the hair feels about the same way, so should i remove it and salt it until it is dry or should i leave it in, and do i need to neutralize it after i remove it to salt it? please help
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It seems as if you've screwed the pooch here. First and foremost, fox are notorious for slippage along with the cats. The lest human contact you have with the skin the better and the faster, even better. It sounds as if you DID NOT salt the hide as soon as you had it fleshed (Bad move#1) and introduced it to the pickle immediately (Worse move #2). Salt removes moisture which tends to lock hair follicles. After an overnight salting, rehydrating is unnecessary and then putting it directly into the pickle allows the acid to be sucking back into the hide where the moisture came from, thus inhibiting slippage. From what you've described, I'd dry preserve this sucker and get it on a form immediately. Then I wouldn't touch it for a month until all the hair set in place. Otherwise, I think you're going to be dealing in fox leather sans hair.