This up coming season, my buddie and I are not going to have time until the weekend to skin (due to class/ not having a place to skin on campus). My question is this; Do you think that it will be ok to wait until a saturday to skin even with stuff caught on monday? or do you guys think this is too long? I doubt that any of the animals will freeze during the week.

personally i wouldnt wait that long , ya can go a couple days on beaver..itll actually keep them from bleeding so much when you d skin em...

oh, cathryn .. i love it when you talk trappin! lol

i'd have to say that's way too long. like already said beaver hold up pretty good, coons semi good but expect green bellies and a light taint smell. never that long on otters, rats, mink and especially fox & yotes! the sooner the better on those critters!

you and your buddy might have to rethink your line and set accordingly

good luck and have fun

what i would do is find an old big freezer, really cheap one, and just throw them in there, and friday night take them out to unthaw over night, then skin them the next morning. i have skinned yotes that have been given to me that someone shot a week after they have been dead, trust me it ain't fun if they havn't been frozen very well. they do stink and i would recommend wearing gloves, but i have never had a problem with hair slippage. typically i try to skin everything within the first day or two, or i throw them in a freezer. jt

Good advise above.

It's a whole lot easier to skin just about anything as soon as you can. Especially Coyotes, they just get tuffer to do and are down-right nasty after they've BEEN froze. It takes 'em so long to thaw out = not good!

Think about a skinning set-up to go into the trailer receiver on your car or pick-up..... You could skin-as-you-catch before you get back to campus....

Used freezers are pretty easy to find and will save a lot of fur for you.

I am NOT a fan of freezing critters whole though.
MINK - Yes but nothing else....
Skin 'em first then freeze 'em.... FLAT.....

From my view, you have only two viable options in your present circumstances without time, or the facility to put up your fur in an expeditious fashion:

- Put them in a freezer until you can get to them on the weekend.

- Sell them in the "round" as quickly as possible to a local fur buyer who skins stuff - and, take a hit on the lower price of fair market value. Do some research in advance so you do not get stiffed.

If neither of those are available, you have only one viable, prudent option left = forget about trapping. The pigskin is far more important than stressing yourself out over the frustration and disappointment of trying to manage the disposition of marginally marketable hides in a decaying state (if left that long) just on the strength of the fact that you two men "want to trap." Priorities, common sense and practicality are the only variables that need be factored in this math equation. End of the hunt.

Jonathan

Note on coyotes, and other predators--> If you wait even one day, it can turn the leather GREEN on the belly, as the strong digestive juices begin to break down. If this is severe enough, it can cause slipage (hair to come loose from the fur), some times in large clumps, devaluing the fur.

Removing the fur from the animal while the animal is still warm, can make it much easier.

It is easier to flesh an animal after the fat has cooled.

anywhere from 1 day to 1 year.

skinning an animal like a coon only takes a few minutes. For me, I am slow on skinning and I can skin a coon in 10 minutes. If you don't have time to skin, I have to ask. Do you really have time to trap? If I skin a coon in the field, It takes hardly any time at all. I've had coonhunting friends that have skinned coons walking back to their vehicle. One holds the feet, one pulls the skin as they are walking. Hardly no extra time invested at all.

When I was in college back in the 70's I had no place to skin. all I had was a car. I would check traps, By then it would be dark. I would make my leg cuts on the coons and drive over the skinned back feet on the coons, to hold them in place and pull the skin off using the car as my gambrel. LOL. I did it in front of the apartment, in the street, and in the dark.

Point here is, If you really want to trap, have the time to trap. You can simply use your imagination and figure the skinning out.

Hope this helps
P

If you do by chance have to let them sit for a day, make sure you lay everything on their backs, this will help in keeping the bellies from turning green so fast.

Unless really rotten, hair slippage becomes a problem when they go to the tanners. If you take any pride at all in your work, and have any respect for the animals you will skin them asap, so as to ship a quality product and not waste them.

Throw the animal in the freezer if you can't skin it right away. It will take more than overnight to thaw out a beaver, coyote, or even a coon. If you take them out Friday night, it will take all day Saturday, maybe into Sunday before they're ready to skin.

I skin all my animals the day I catch them. If I couldn't, I wouldn't trap.

I already stated my opinion on this thread but I have to respond to this ...



That is best and much prefered by most, including myself. BUT if and when you run a good number of traps and your catch numbers way exceed "part time/hobby/weekend" trappers numbers ... even LONG LATE nights in the fur shed don't get everything acomplished sometimes!!! That's just the way it is! If I could not put off a few beavers until the next day at times ... I'd have to quit trapping according to your expectations ... and that's just flat out ridiculous!

just my 3 cents! lol

well..ive had to freeze a some coon when i couldnt get em skinned cause i was catching em faster than i could skin em...i thawed em a couple days before and i didnt have a problem skinnin them....actually seemed a little easier to me cause the fat was congealed and easier to remove, IMO.

i do prefer to do it as i go, but sometimes time doesnt permit, and im not gonna stop trappig cause i have to freeze a few critters..they skinned out fine when i got to them.

Good Luck.

those frozen ones give me something to do on a real bad day when i dont have any traps out due to weather conditions...just my .02

I would just as soon skin them fresh as to have to put them in the freeze too, but like Cathryn said there is just some times you have to freeze them. Plan on longer skinning time if you have to freeze them though.

cat, don't you mean possum?

NO Les she is talking about when her daughter catches the coons, she will skin them for her!!! LMAO

naw, smartbutt, theyre easy as pie to skin once ya do enough of em..lol , i do them all soon as i catch em

youre right trax..im sure some of the guys running snares either freeze em or hire a skinner...

trax..she may very well catch some this year

taxidermist freeze em all the time. Do you think the trappers in alaska get to all of their fur before it freezes solid.? Heck we had foxes to freeze last year before we could finisdh the days check!

Another thought is while you and your partner are out checking your sets , Why not flip a coin one stays back and skins critters while the other checks sets . and trade off , then put the skinned fur into a freezer and thaw them out on a friday and flesh and strech during the weekends ?
Best Wishes , amtrapper

Ok, Maybe I should explain alittle. The problem that we have is we do not have access to a freezer up at school, we both live about an hour away. I dont have class till 11 (which, depending on line size, will give us time to check traps and maybe skin a few). After 3 o'clock, I do not have class, so I would beable to skin then. We are renting a storage garage in town but it, obviously does not have a freezer. If I skin em, and roll them fur side in and make a run say, Wednesday back home to bring Sunday-Wednesday's catch to the freezer and then thurs-sat back home on saturday, Do you think that might work Okay? Tell me what you guys think. I told you my schedule, what would you guys do? I like the truck hitch gambreal Idea.

I guess my question is, Will the furs be okay for 2-3 days if we skin them and roll them?

trapper7...were going to live in a dorm! we wont have a freezer. we will have them all skinned the day we catch them...but what to do wiht thema fter we skin them? thanks

can ya sell em in the round anywhere there local?
then you dont have to worry bout skinnin em at all.

I would worry about them air drying before you could flesh and stretch them. If you have some place to keep them cold it would help.

If you can keep them cold you should be ok for a couple of day's. If it's really cold out, I let then lay outside in the snow for a day or two. I prefer to skin coons after they have cooled down, and yotes as soon as I shot them.

good luck and like cath said, find a local buyer so you don't have to worry about it.

rent a small storage unit near campus and equip it with a freezer a smaller unit should only cost about 30 to 40 bucks a month you'll only need it for two maybe three months and a big used deep freeze find cheap for 50 to 75 bucks and your set plus you'll have a little extra storage room for trap supplys bait etc.

Thats what i was thinking playin4funami........But how many storage garages have electricty....Then you would have to pay for electricity.

i know most of the ones around here have an outlet in them lots of people store cars and such and hook up battery chargers,etc. I think its like 5 bucks a month extra for one with electricity. But your gonna have to get the yellow pages out and make some phone calls to all the differnt storage units in the area where your gonna need it and ask about what they offer. Never hurts to ask. Also might find a garage or shed someone might rent or let you use cheap,ask the people that are giving you permission to trap,most farms have at least one if not more old unused rundown sheds on them it wouldn't be much but then you don't need much.

If there is now place on campus to skin them, where are you going to store the dead animals until you can skin them? If you are taking them to the place you are going to skin on weekends to store why can't you skin the Mon-Wed ones when you go there? If you are storing on campus or near by that could be interesting also.
Also if you have good luck are you going to be able to skin a weeks worth of catches and set out a new line or upgrade the old line? If you are going to skin and freeze I would put some of the early Mon-Wed in the freezer whole and bring out Friday for Sat-Sunday skinning.

Bryce

bblwi, Im thinking we are going to have to get a storage garage, hopefully one with power like playin said.

why don't you just stretch and dry all your skins then? You won't need a freezer. As soon as you skin the furs, can't you just put them on a stretcher?

what temp do they need to be at on the stretcher?....does that matter? if so the only place they can be kept is the storage shed!

I would suggest going out and meeting a few local farmers. Tell them your dilemma and ask if you could work a few hours a week or days a month in exchange for a place to skin and prepare your furs. Or, I would guess there are many students living off campus - meet some of them and use their facilities. I trapped in college and used friends rental houses and my own my last year. I ran traps in the morning/slung dead critters on the front porch and hauled carcasses to the ditch. I had a big freezer in the basement and sold every weekend. - Being only an hour away from home - I'd guess you know some local kids already going there - get ahold of them and see if they have a freezer. I am too tight to pay 40 bucks a month for a storage shed.

Do you have a refrigerator? If you put fresh-skun fur in a refrigerator for several days, it shouldn't taint or spoil.

Besides, having a little fur in the frig won't hurt or harm your beer, it that's what botherin ya.

Whatcha gonna do when the dorm is full of fleas and ticks, and stinks like yote den.

heck some farmer might loan you a shed for trapping the "dang corn eatin coons'" off his property. a farmer I know has a feild 1/2 mile long that borders creek bottom he keeps asking me to trap them ALL,lol. Last year the first 30 or so rows from the edge didn't have a ear of corn in it. That guy,s offered me the use of anything on his place and always asks if there's anything I need everytime I see him. Shouldn't be a problem finding a farmer with coons eating their crop in the middle of Iowa.

Here is what I do. In the winter time I typicaly work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day at a refinery. I drive 1 hour each way to and from work. By the time I get off work, get home and eat supper, drive to my deer lease where I trap its about 8:30-9:00 at night and I am dog tired. I check all my traps and remake them as needed. I usually catch things several nights a week. I sell alot to a local taxidermist straight out of my truck but what he doesnt buy, I turn on the porch light and get to skinning. I have skinned until 2 am before and got up at 4:30 to get ready for work. I wont do that every night but usually it's after 11:00 before I am done. Only once have I froze 2 coyotes, a fox, 3 coons and 2 bobcats and defrosted them the next weekend off and skinned them. It seems like the fur shed off the animal quiet a bit during the defrosting and me handling it wet. All I can tell you is get a good light and get good at skinning and never give up!

Newboy where are you going to school at?

Both Creekman Coon and I are going to UNI.

Get a big cooler, keep it filled with a block of ice. Use a little dry ice if you can get it from the chemistry dept. Well... never mind the dry ice unless the cooler will be outside. CO2 can kill inside. Keep the furs cold in the cooler. I keep deer meat cold for a week that way.