Do You Have To Salt A Deer Hide ?

Depends on the way you want to go about it. I use the traditional brain tan method which is better to me than using all those chemicals. I like to get rid of the hair simply because deer hair is hollow, not like fur, so it will pull out faster and easier over less time than lets say bear. It makes it more soft too if you get the hair out. There’s two ways to braintan: wet method and dryscrape method. I have tanned my hides using the dryscrape, and hopefully start on getting used to the wet method soon just because it’s been raining here. There’s also alum tanning though, I haven’t used it yet, but plan to on a few bobcats I have in the freezer. Alum tanning should work, but again, I don’t have experience in that. Ok, so you skin the deer the day you want to begin to tan. No, you don’t have to put salt on it. If it was going to be long enough you think it may start to spoil, just skin the deer, toss the hide in a barrel or bucket of water with a water hose trickling in it. That way, it’s even still good the next day if your day runs out of time. Oh, about 3 years is about the longest time you want to have them in salt, after that, they don’t tan right normally. I like the freezer, if you have room that is. Just skin the deer, put it in two trashbags with tight knots so ticks don’t find their way out, and stick in the freezer. Well, good luck. gotta run

There are recipes for tanning with fur on, i think you can get some of them over the internet. If you need to preserve the hide for a period of time you can either salt it or put it in the freezer.