Here is the problem. I had a customer bring me a comercially tanned
raccoon pelt. Whomever skinned out the coon left the feet unskinned and
a portion of the leg intact. The customer wanted me to skin out the feet for him.
What happened next I have never seen nor heard of anyone else having this happen.
I soaked the feet in some cold water with a little bacteriacide in it.
I went out to check the progress the next day and the feet fell off
in my hand. The skin tore as if it were wet paper. On any part of the hide that got
wet from the soak. I know it was not bacteria because of the bacteriacide and also
it was less than 24 hours in the soak. Have any of you ever had any
thing like this happen? If so do any of you know what the problem
was?
Todd B
How old was the tan? did you add any salt to the water? how long did you soak? why would the tanner run this with out finishing the skinning at an extra cost? etc etc....
I did not add salt. I talked with the customer tonite and He just said
he was not happy with the taxidermist he had skin it in the first place.
He did not understand why the feet and about 3 inches of the leg were left
in the skin either. As i mentioned in the earlier post it was overnite
(about 14 hours.
Todd B
I cannot believe it was sent to a commercial tanner and they even attempted to tan it without either skinning out the feet or just removing them completly. I cannot see how it would be possible to tan in this condition.
sounds like both. When you leave meat intact it grease burns since you can never really pull all the grease out, the skin falling apart when wet is simply acid rot. If you ever run into this situation again, don't soak it like that. Just soak the feet in a salt water solution for about an hour, bag them over night then try and peel the skin off the foot, you might get part done and need to soak it again.
Overall, it's a bad situation, and you should try to avoid it all together if at all possible.