What do you do with deer skins?

SakoHunter75

Lads (+ lassies?)

I'm looking to get into deer stalking next year, i.e. the 2017/8 season, for a variety of reasons: to control the numbers of sika on our farm, and for free and clean meat, but mainly for sport.

One thing I was wondering about was, what do lads do with the skins off the carcasses? I searched the forum and couldn't find any mention of this. I'm asking partly out of curiosity, but also because it will be a practical issue for me in the future, all going well.

cookimonster

As a suburbanite, mine goes in my brown bin with other food waste, just roll it into a neat bundle, hair out and wrap up in biodegradable bag or the Northside News.

I also have permission from some of the land owners to dispose of them in thier ditches as I do with grollocks, hoves and heads. You very, very rarely come across any of the aforementioned pulled out into the open. Any hides I've found out and about is other lads carelessly dumping in the open.

FISMA.

SakoHunter75 wrote: »

Lads (+ lassies?)
I'm asking partly out of curiosity, but also because it will be a practical issue for me in the future, all going well.

Pratical? Doubtful. Perhaps, a one-off learning experience.

The chemicals involved in tanning hides can be quite nasty stuff. If you're doing a lot of hides, you'll need buckets of the stuff around.

There are home tanning kits available outside of Ireland. Not sure if they are available locally.

There are more natural ways of tanning hides, like brain-tanning, as used by Native Americans.

My grandfather used to make bodhran using a buried hide and chemicals. Unfortunately, we were to young to care enough to learn the procedure.

SakoHunter75

FISMA. wrote: »

Pratical? Doubtful. Perhaps, a one-off learning experience. The chemicals involved in tanning hides can be quite nasty stuff. If you're doing a lot of hides, you'll need buckets of the stuff around.

Thanks very much for the replies Cookimonster and Fisma.

I doubt if I'd be interested in trying to use the hides myself in any way, certainly not to begin with anyway. I meant practical issue more just in terms of what to do with them. I think Cookimonster pointed me in the right direction, ie just treat the hide as another unwanted part of the carcass along with the gralloch, hooves and head.

Well, that's one question answered, thanks again!