Hair Slipping

hoytarcher · Jun 24, 2021

I had 3 red fox, 2 coyote and a bobcat in my pickle solution. Tonight I took them out to neutralize and the hair on the fox was slipping really bad. The coyotes and bobcats are fine.

Pickle solution is citric acid and McKenzie safety acid, Ph was 1.5 for 4 days.
Neutralized in water and baking soda. Ph never got above 1.5

What would cause this? Something that I did? Pickle solution had 42% salinity.

Hides were fleshed and boarded by a local trapper. Rehydrated in 42% salinity and warm water for 2 days until rehydrated.

Frank E. Kotula · Jun 25, 2021

Properly not as the issue happened prior to the pickle
One , fox are notorious for high bacteria so this is your main reason on slippage
Now how and where did it begin
Once shot it starts. Now was it kept cool prior to you ? Next how long they had it?
Then how did you care for it? Did you freeze prior to skinning, thawing method, skinning time etc. So many factors come to play with fox.
Plus reading more in your thread I see warm water!!!!
Guess what heat causes? Bacteria growth!
Even though you had a salt brine warm water can easily have done this. Cool water is all that’s needed to hydrate any cape. Salt brines are ok with green capes only. A salted cape or air dried can and will hydrate poorly in a brine. There are products like enzol B that helps with capes like these but if a cape is bad like your fox it’ll show up fast in this and other solutions we use to hydrate. Hydrating in warm water is more of a no no unless you know what you’re exactly doing. A warm pickle or even a tanning solution is fine. This is just a reason this happened.

hoytarcher · Jun 28, 2021

Frank E. Kotula said: ↑

Properly not as the issue happened prior to the pickle
One , fox are notorious for high bacteria so this is your main reason on slippage
Now how and where did it begin
Once shot it starts. Now was it kept cool prior to you ? Next how long they had it?
Then how did you care for it? Did you freeze prior to skinning, thawing method, skinning time etc. So many factors come to play with fox.
Plus reading more in your thread I see warm water!!!!
Guess what heat causes? Bacteria growth!
Even though you had a salt brine warm water can easily have done this. Cool water is all that’s needed to hydrate any cape. Salt brines are ok with green capes only. A salted cape or air dried can and will hydrate poorly in a brine. There are products like enzol B that helps with capes like these but if a cape is bad like your fox it’ll show up fast in this and other solutions we use to hydrate. Hydrating in warm water is more of a no no unless you know what you’re exactly doing. A warm pickle or even a tanning solution is fine. This is just a reason this happened.
Click to expand...

Thank you for this!!! I got them from a local trapper who air dried them. I did a fox that was green, straight off the carcass and had no issues. What you just told me explains alot of what could have possibly happened. Thank you again for the response.

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Hair Slipping

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Frank E. Kotula master, judge, instructor

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