Skinning the head of a coyote

D

Destroyer

New member
I just skinned my second coyote amd decided I woud skin out the head. I cut the ears off of the skull by the cartalige, there I still a lot of cartalige in the ears will that be okay. What do you do about the nose I just cut the cartilege so the hide would come off, do I need to get all ot it out or will it be okay. I plan on tanning it my self. I was going to send it to you River Runner but the coyote has a huge bullet hole in it, and is kinda small. Hopefully the next one will be a nice one
 
if you dont want the hair to slip around the ears and/or nose you should turn the cartilage. Kind of hard to explain how to do it without showing you in person though. You don't always have to do it, but that is the only way to guarantee the hair won't slip. I don't usually turn the ears and nose on my dogs though and they are usually ok. You should make sure you get all the meat and fat off from around the ears for sure though.
 
Hey D,

You'll need to get all the cartilage off the nose by slicing it until you get to where you cant slice (the white stuff) off anymore. Then tan the hide. The nose will come out a little stiff still, but you'll need to re-hydrate the hide to soften it up. ( for mounting purposes)

On the ears you need to seperate the back of the ear off of the cartilage, that way your salt can get in there and dehydrate that much. Tan the hide then after tanning, peal the cartilage off. Its much easier this way then trying to "skin it off" during the fleshing job.

Leave it attached on the front since it is paper thin. Youll do more damage by trying to get the the cartilage out, than leaving it alone until after the tan job.

Youll need to also split the lips while your at it. With the hide flat, flesh side up, youll need to basically fillet the lips like you would a fish. That way you can get salt in there also.

Hope this helps....
 
Like they mentioned Destroyer, the more meat and fat you can get out from around those areas the better off you'll be.
I always like to leave a little cartilage in the noses of small animals or otherwise the get beat to death in the tumbler and end up with no nose at all.

If you choose not to turn the ears, be sure to salt the bases down real good. Ears can be a touchy thing and will go bad fast.

Give me a shout if you run into any problems /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
It is virtually impossible to get the cartilage removed prior to tanning. You can turn the ears inside out by separating the cartilage from the skin on the back of the ears, but the skin on the interior of the ear is to delicate and must be tanned first. Lots of taxidermists even leave this in after tanning and don't use an ear liner on small game because it is too hard to remove, so they bondo the insides.
 


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