How to prep a bear skin

 

If you wish to keep your bear skin as an unforgettable souvenir, we have the solution...tanning!

 

Here are the three options for preserving a bear hide prior to shipping:

 

Option 1: Dried skin

The skin must be completely fleshed, stretched and nailed flat to a large surface, such as a large wooden board for drying. This preparation requires a lot of time and effort and should be done by an experienced person.

 

Option 2: Salted skin

The skin must be completely fleshed before salting the leather side of the skin. This preparation still requires considerable effort and should be done also by an experienced person.

 

Option 3: Freezing the skin

For those who can drop off their hide directly to the tannery, we accept frozen skins. This option is by far the easiest way to go.

 

For frozen skins only, there is no need to salt or fleshed the hide beforehand.

 

If you don't have the knowledge or experience of preparing the skin, we can do it for you!

 

Note: Never send a frozen skin by mail or courier. Think it’s funny, it happened to us!

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Steps to follow for freezing a bear skin :

 

Step 1: Skinning the skin

To obtain the best quality from your bear hide, proper handling of the skin as soon as the animal is harvested is generally essential. This must be done as quickly as possible, especially in warm weather.

 

After gutting, skin the hide as quickly as possible. If you arrive home and it's late, hang the bear overnight to ensure good air circulation around the animal. The next morning, skin the animal as quickly as possible and place the skin in the freezer.

 

Step 2 - Head Preparation:

Remove the skull from the hide if possible. If you don't know how to do this, leave the skull with the hide and simply cut the skull at the last vertebra connecting the head to the spine. We will skin the head for you so as not to damage the ears cartilage, the eyelids, the mouth and the nose and thus maintain a beautiful appearance of the hide.

 

Step 3 - Paws Preparation:

Many times, we've been asked if we can tan the skin with the claws on. The answer is yes, but if you don't know how to do it, you simply have to dislocate the front legs paws at the wrists and dislocate the hind legs paws at the ankles with a good knife. This way, we will properly skin out the paws so as not to damage the roots of the claws, which will remain firmly attached to the hide.

 

The hide is very dirty, there is blood on the fur, no problem! No need to wash it, we'll take care of that during the tanning process.

 

Step 4 - Freezing (watch the video)

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Proper handling of the hide will have a direct impact on the tanning results! This will allow you to preserve an unforgettable hunting memory for many years to come.

 

For information, please call 506 727-9090

 

Happy hunting!