I just recently found a roadkill skunk and decided to skin it.
when i found the skunk i hadn’t done too much research on tanning or skinning so i quickly got on the internet and read what ever i could find. it was pretty fresh but i didn’t want to let it sit for another night and day so i started skinning it almost right away. anyhow, i skinned the skunk without much of a problem except when i got to the tale. i tried getting the tail bone out but that didn’t go so well so i just left the bone in the tail and sort of cut the bone off leaving the tail attached. i stretched and fleshed the hide and left it out to dry but it never really got any dryer. after about 3 days, somebody had left behind little yellow eggs embedded in the hide so i gave up and tossed it. needless to say, i really should have done a heck of a lot more research.
I buried the carcass so i could retrieve the bones later after they’d been cleaned off but i don’t know when to dig them up or what to do with them once i have them. any knowledge, advice, links or reading suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
also does anyone have any links or suggested reading so i’ll be better prepared for the next time i encounter another victim of the automobile?
I buried the carcass so i could retrieve the bones later after they'd been cleaned off but i don't know when to dig them up or what to do with them once i have them.
I hear ants do a wonderful job of cleaning off bones.
My family just picked up a deer on the highway and I got to keep the head. I wanted to leave it outside so the bugs could have their feast and help me out as well. The thing is I have had to many skulls carried off to just leave something on the ground again, but I didn’t want to bury it because I thought it would cut down on bug traffic. My brothers told me that what they do is leave the bones on the ground, put chicken wire over the top of it, and weight it down with stones around the edges. Nothing has ever carried the bones off, and you can see when the bones are done.
I bet you have already figured out what you’ll do differently with your next hide by now, but my unsolicited suggestion would be to salt the hide as soon as your done scraping. It draws out the moisture, you scrap off the wet salt, and do it all over again. Skunks are one of the fattiest animals so it takes a shitload of salt to eventually dry them out. All my experience is with racoons wich are similar in fattyness to skunks. I also had those little yellow eggs, followed of course by maggots, but as soon as I got the salt on they were taken care of.
thanks for the info, guys.
salt, eh? i’ll do that. and yeah, i was amazed at how much fat there was and was also expecting the smell to be pretty bad but up close, skunk smells really strongly of garlic. i wonder if it would taste the same?
i was told that maggots and worms do a pretty good job of cleaning off the bones when buried. covering the body with chicken wire sounds like it might be a lot speedier though. i was looking forward to adding a skunk skull to my skull collection but the poor guy had all his front teeth smashed in. still, it’s better than nothing. now that i think about it there’s a lot i could have taken off the carcass before burying it, like the sinew.
but there’s always next time.
Yeah, post about the results of your next find. Good luck.
if you crack open the skull and take out the brains you can boil it in water until the mixture becomes a pasty substance. then apply this to the dried and stretched hide. let the hide dry in the sun and you have just successfully brain-tanned your hide.
keep in mind that 1 animal brain is enough to tan said animals hide. that is to say, 1 skunk brain is good for one skunk, 1 deer brain for 1 deer, etc.
[quote=“Adahy, post:6, topic:456”]if you crack open the skull and take out the brains you can boil it in water until the mixture becomes a pasty substance. then apply this to the dried and stretched hide. let the hide dry in the sun and you have just successfully brain-tanned your hide.
keep in mind that 1 animal brain is enough to tan said animals hide. that is to say, 1 skunk brain is good for one skunk, 1 deer brain for 1 deer, etc.[/quote]
Unfortunately ya have to do a lot more than that… your instructions would still leave the hide stiff as a board.
The exception being politicians. Couple hundred just to get enough brains to tan one hide.