Transporting elk hide?

[RLXFXR]

Hope to drive back to PA from Idaho with a processed elk and hide this Fall. Some say to salt the hide and some say just fold it up and freeze to transport home. Thoughts? Experiences?

 

[EdP]

Freeze it. Cool it down as much as possible before folding up. Cool to freezing with ice than add dry ice to freeze. I brought bear hides back to Va from Idaho and they were fine. No need to freeze the meat, just the hide, so use separate coolers. You can freeze the meat if you want, but then have to let it thaw before processing. No need to do that, just keep it cold with ice. Put something in the bottom of the cooler to keep the meat up out of the melt water and drain as necessary.

 

[RLXFXR]

Thank you for your advice!

 

[Rjk300]

We have always salted them down, folded them in half skin to skin, rolled them, bagged them, and froze them.


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[Turkeygetpwnd38]

Cool it down, skin on skin, roll and freeze. I’ve asked a few really good taxidermist and all said not to salt. If you were on a fly in hunt for 10-14 days with no access to freezer/dry ice, that would be another story.

 

[bpeay4]

ask your taxidermist what he prefers

 

[JoeB]

as a Taxidermist I would rather see the hide frozen or kept very cold. Dont let is float in a cooler full of water either keep dry as possible. Some think they know how to prep a skin for salting but its more work for the taxidermist if done wrong and could be bad if its done wrong and cause loose or slipping hair.

 

[taskswap]

Cool it down, skin on skin, roll and freeze. I’ve asked a few really good taxidermist and all said not to salt. If you were on a fly in hunt for 10-14 days with no access to freezer/dry ice, that would be another story.

My taxidermist said the same thing (do not salt).

I think if you're going to give a go of tanning and processing it yourself, do whatever fits the system you choose. If you're going to use a taxidermist, ask them. You'll get better results that way.

 

[F21FALCON]

I was told same thing about cooling down then freezing. He said if you don't cool down first the center of the rolled up hide could go bad.

 

[TaperPin]

Hope to drive back to PA from Idaho with a processed elk and hide this Fall. Some say to salt the hide and some say just fold it up and freeze to transport home. Thoughts? Experiences?

Check with your taxidermist or the tannery doing the work - not every tannery will accept a frozen hide, because they rarely stay frozen and warm spots cause so many problems - and that means they don’t care how well you tell the story, they have a hard no on frozen hides.

The problems with salting are many people have an attention span about as long as a 30 second commercial, too little time is spent cleaning the hide (nothing left on that’s more than 1/8” to 1/4” thick, too little salt is used (should be at least a lb for every lb of hide and hides are heavy and salt should be added to areas that dissolve and are thin - you can’t over salt), not the right kind of salt is used (should be a fine salt since rock salt doesn’t have enough moisture to dissolve correctly, and it cannot be iodized or it might stain), the temp isn’t correct (too hot dries everything out before salt soaks in completely), not enough time is allowed for the salt to do it’s work and moisture to drain off before being wrapped up (at least a couple of days and half a week is better), and finally half assing and cutting corners at every step because of some forum posts say they half assed it and everything turned out just fine.

Personally, I’d drop the hide at a place in Idaho and have them ship it after it’s tanned.